Rake at the Gates of Annwn
by General Chaos
Summary: Rumors of my death have been grossly exaggerated. Rumors of my catatonia, however, have been not.
1. A Funny Thing Happened On The Way...

Here eet ees, the first installment to my bloated 'little' still-in-progress serial. Hope everybody likes and doesn't run screaming after me with pitchforks, because they're painful and not very clean.  
  
Beta readers include Chris Angelini, Diane Damiani, Matthew Gerber, and my multiple personality disorder. Writing style by way of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams (RIP). Drink by Coca-Cola. Ice Cream by Kroger's Chocolate Almond Indulgence.  
  
Dante, Trish, Devil May Cry, Devil Never Cry, so on so forth blah blah blah is property of Capcom and I'm borrowing, dang it. Leamealone. Though if you let me have Dante I'll not mind. At all. Please? I'm asking you nicely.   
Anybody else not Capcom's property in this story is mine. Mine, damn you, MINE! AHAHAHAHHA-- (is hit on the side of a head with a rock and falls down, burbling)  
  
  
***********  
  
RAKE AT THE GATES OF ANNWN:  
A Story of Devil May Cry   
by  
Amy Borden  
  
  
Mother's eyes are sparkling diamonds,  
Still the moon shows no light  
This rose is withered, may God deliver  
The rake at the gates of Hell tonight!  
--The Pogues, "Rake at the Gates of Hell"  
  
He knew something was wrong ten yards from the door.  
  
The coppery, chemical stink that hit his nose and made portions of his psyche kick in and snarl...blood. Ignoring them, he all but bashed down the doors trying to get in, lurid scenarios playing out in his mind. Some of them were rewarded by the scene that first hit his eyes--the beautiful blond struggling with something thrashing and making incoherent noises. After the initial mode of near-panic, he realized his partner was not being attacked, but trying to hold something down. Someone, matter of fact, and they were moaning incoherently and bleeding all over his office couch.  
  
"Trish, what the--"  
  
Trish looked up a moment, gritting teeth in effort--that being no small thing, as Trish was no weakling. "Pardon me, busy, Dante. Found a couple of Sin Scythes trying to dice her several blocks away. Be nice if you helped."  
  
"Crap." He dashed over. "How bad?"  
  
Trish tried again to stanch the blood from the stranger's wounds, getting more of her hands and the makeshift bandages turned scarlet. "Damn deep. I think a lung's punctured and a few arteries, and she's--nnnngh!--out of it. She's gonna go into shock soon if the blood loss doesn't kill her first. Dammit, *stay still*!" This was to the attack victim, who was in no state to pay attention. Dante got a brief impression of chalky skin and pitch-black hair from around Trish before he leaned in to hold the woman down, closing his eyes a second in an effort to tell his demonic half to Back Down, Already. The flailing wrist he was trying to pin down was clammy...a bad, bad sign.  
  
"Damn. She's going down. You called paramedics?"  
  
"I didn't have *time* to, Dante!"  
  
"Right." He screwed his eyes shut again, in mixed feelings. "Guess what time it is?"  
  
Trish grunted again against an arm that gave her a bloody handprint on the shoulder of what had once been a white tee shirt. "That hoodoo you do so well? Do it already."  
  
Dante nodded, grabbing the woman's wrists, tapping inside himself. Power ran wild and violet from him, through his gloved hands, into the dying woman. Before his eyes, the slices on her face and wrists closed and sealed shut under the blood, the dire blue tint bled out of the pale features, and the fighting sagged into a healthier unconsciousness.  
  
Dante sagged to his knees, panting, all but tapped out of energy, Trish moving in to check the newcomer again, though there shouldn't have been a need. She was nowhere near healed, but she was out of danger, would live. It seemed miraculous.  
  
Dante Sparda smiled a bit bitterly to himself.   
  
Pity it wasn't a miracle sourced in powers most major religions liked.  
  
  
  
Trish knocked on Dante's bedroom door the next morning, after a largely boring night of watching their patient alternated with trying to get the blood out of the office couch combined with the occasional doze. His apartment above Devil Never Cry was the only logical place they had to take her to, so said patient was on the secondhand couch in the living room, intermittently stirring in restless dreams and mumbling to herself.   
  
The door opened, though that was a mild term for the sudden *wham* of movement it made. A looming, boxer-clad image topped by a tangled mop of ice-colored hair looked at her blearily and went "Nnggh."  
  
"Breakfast?" Trish inquired cheerfully, offering a plate of waffles with syrup.  
  
The apparition looked at her with muzzy, undiluted pure murder in its glacier green eyes. Trish just smiled brightly back at it.  
  
The late unlamented Devil Emperor Mundus hadn't been very informative on who or what Trish was, other than bait, a trap, and ultimately disposable. She could be fully demonic, she could be a chimera of human and demon, she could be a magical construct, she could be--God forbid--some of the last fragments of Dante's human mother's soul, given flesh. That last had given Dante a lot of pause. He had enough issues on his plate without adding anything Oedipal to them as was. He wasn't dead, no, but the unfortunate family resemblance was more than enough of a healthy dose of saltpeter for their relationship getting anywhere past business partnership and kinship.   
  
God only knew what she was.   
  
But that wasn't the problem.  
  
No, it was worse. Much much worse. Infinitely worse.  
  
Trish was....a Morning Person.  
  
Dante looked at the scene through eyes veiled by a mess of rumpled silver bangs, and said something that sounded vaguely like "Mglph." With that erudite phrase, he turned around and stomped back into his bedroom, not quite slamming the door behind him.  
  
"What, no waffles?" She rapped on the door again.  
  
"Flock off and die, Trish," came the muffled response.  
  
"They'll get cold."  
  
"I'll eat them later."  
  
"Love you too."  
  
There was a muffled thud from the door, as if someone had thrown a cushion at it. Trish rolled her eyes and laid the plate by the door for whenever the sleeping Dante rose from the dead.  
  
"What does he *mean* he needs six hours of sleep a night after work? The heck..." Shaking her head, she turned and went to check on their visitor.  
  
Said visitor was still completely out of it herself. The bandages no longer seemed to be showing blood. Her complexion was still dreadfully pale under the dark hair, however; Trish had no idea whether that was from blood loss or something else entirely. She shifted and whimpered uncomfortably, but showed no sign of wanting to wake up just yet. Trish opted for grabbing the paper and eating breakfast while she waited for some change in development from either the couch or the bedroom.  
  
It was almost noon before Dante stomped out again, still looking half-asleep but somewhat more decently dressed in his usual 'work pants' and white tee. "Gnnaaaaaaargh." He stretched his mouth again into another yawn. "Arrrgh. Hrnornk. Nrrrgh."  
  
Trish looked up and pondered a smart remark, thought better of it, and waited while he slouched into the bathroom and took care of necessary business there. Some time later, after various abolutions, he slouched out again, still not looking terribly awake but at least a bit less like something the cat threw up.  
  
"Joined the human race yet?" she inquired. He grunted.  
  
"Gah. Halfway. Shit, what, not noon yet? I can still taste the toothpaste."  
  
"You just brushed."  
  
"Details, details."   
  
"I guess halfway is all we can hope for at the moment?"  
  
"Halfway is what we usually *get* most of the time, so heck. How's beautiful over there doing?"  
  
Trish looked wry, putting down the gun she was cleaning. "Still out like a light. No longer bleeding as far as I can tell, so I suppose what you did took."  
  
"Gosh, what, someone who doesn't survive a Sin Scythe being run through them swimmingly? Who'da thunk."  
  
"Most people can't, Dante."  
  
"Sarcasm, Trish."  
  
"Says the kebab."  
  
"Hey, babe, I get swords run through me all the time. You when we met, Alastor, random idiots on the street...what can I say, I get inured."  
  
"Hmph." Trish shifted the paper by her. "Nothing remarkable with demonic activity, yet. I think taking down Mundus took the vinegar out of a lot of them. Couple leads we might want to look into, though, if we get a 'job'."  
  
Dante nodded, taking the *Post* and starting to slurp coffee, pale eyes flickering over the text as he did so. After coming up for air, he commented, "You're right, no joy. That was a off occurrence last night." He licked his lips. "Now, granted, taking Mundie down was no end of relief and joy for me, but this hurt the business. We may need to start branching out into other lines of work if this keeps up. And between you, me, and the wall, I don't want to get any warmer with the Mob than we already are."  
  
Trish nodded, thoughtful.  
  
"Security work?"  
  
Dante snorted. "They won't let me keep the coat."  
  
"You and your coat."  
  
"We got a good working relationship going, me and my coat."  
  
"Gosh, I feel jealous."  
  
"Don't worry, it's just seniority."  
  
The invalid provided some input into things by tossing around and then whimpering in pain when that did things to her only semi-healed injuries. Dante looked over and wrinkled his nose a bit. "Phew. I *still* can smell the blood on her."  
  
Trish said quietly, "I can't."  
  
Dante looked over, expression softening. There was a wealth of unexpressed meaning in those two words, and judging from the regret in Trish's blue eyes, he figured what it was.   
  
Trish still retained the preternatural strength and agility from when she was nothing more than another demonic servant of Mundus's...but since she'd poured all her power into the one dual-handgun shot that had sent the so-called Devil Emperor back to Hell, that had been all she had retained. It was unknown whether it would ever come back, but after all this time Dante was privately not optimistic.  
  
What price gaining a soul? he wondered.  
  
Trish, however, had covered up any reaction to his expression, going over to check on the woman. Dante shoved a bite of waffle into his mouth and wandered after, chewing. Trish frowned at something.  
  
"...Clay and dust? Weird fever dream..." Dante's ears perked up, his acute hearing grasping at the mumble.  
  
A soft, lyrical soprano...that of a singer's, if it wasn't hoarsened and blurred with something alien in delirium, running wild and distracted.  
  
"....wings of birds, in the darkness....clay for food, dust for drink..."  
  
He looked down at her, her lips still moving though voice now unheard beyond even his diabolically-inherited hearing. She was still wearing the bloody rags of a tee shirt and loose pants, which Trish had cut away at last night to get to her wounds. Even chalky and wan with blood loss, the fine bone structure and catlike, compact delicacy of her face was striking, making her seem a broken porcelain doll. Dante stared for a minute at it. It was difficult not to, especially when you were a healthy straight male under thirty. The portion of his mind not indulging his testosterone count was churning away, however, taking note both of her weakened state and those words.  
  
"Hel-lo. Trish...something's weird there. You have that funky laptop of yours around somewhere?"  
  
Trish said distractedly, wiping a clammy forehead with a washcloth, "The Powerbook? Back at my place, why?"  
  
"May need it at least to get some leads online. I'm interested all of a sudden."  
  
Trish looked up, frowning. "You too? I'm getting a sense of deja vu all of a sudden."  
  
"Me too. You're going to have to do the search. That flocking computer hates me."  
  
"You just don't work with it enough."  
  
"No, it hates me."  
  
  
  
Voices....  
  
A clear soprano...."Luddite." It was rather close. There was something damp and rough being rubbed on her temples. Cloth.  
  
Second voice, male, tenor, slightly roughened, from cigarettes or unuse or just life, though didn't sound that old...."Hey, I'm good at what I do. Computers are *not* among 'em."  
  
"Or answering machines. Or decent cellphones...or...."  
  
"They hate me too."  
  
"I repeat again: Luddite. And you're depending on *me* to do the online research?"  
  
"After you throwing a sword through me, it's small change, innit?"  
  
"Touche."  
  
Absently, she asked... "...swords?" It took some work getting all the vocal apparatus under control.  
  
There was a lot of quiet after that, so she opened her eyes, focusing hazily. There seemed to be two blue objects not far above her field of vision that seemed eyelike. They were surrounded by something facelike, and then something hairlike, which looked blondlike. She pondered this in abstract fascination, plus the stunned expression on the face.  
  
"...She's awake."  
  
The male voice again. "You win the Obvious Award. Hey there, beautiful. No moving, you still got holes in you." A second pair of eyes hove into view, further up and annoyingly upside down. They were a strange pale uncertain shade, opting for what seemed to be a greenish silver at the moment. The shaggy bangs above them were even paler, a silver-white, although her absent note of the face was that it didn't seem particularly lined.  
  
She pondered things, then solemnly stated, "I seem to have a craving for applesauce."  
  
Then she passed out again. 


	2. ...That Was Different.

"..That was different."  
Dante stared down at the again unconscious woman. Her eyes had seemed to be dark grey, except that at second look, they had been dark brown, nearly black, shot through with streaks of silver....  
  
"We got the spokeswoman for Musselman's here."  
  
The girl opened her eyes again. "...and Chinese. I don't feel good." The accent was straight from the United Kingdom. It was clear and melodious enough to cut glass with, even through the distant, blurred inflection of someone dealing with her level of injury.  
  
"You had some injuries," Trish noted to her gently. No need to point out to her yet if it hadn't been for Dante she'd have been a corpse. "By some very nasty types."  
  
The girl absently looked up at the ceiling, contemplating all the various bits of cobwebs Dante'd never had an urge to get around to cleaning. "...I did?"  
  
"You did."  
  
"I don't remember."  
  
"What's your name?"  
  
"Anna. Anne....Annie......something like that.... maybe...."  
  
"You don't know?"  
  
Her dainty face contorted a moment. "Can't....quite remember......sounded like that...I liked the second more...."  
  
"Anne?" Dante pondered. "Last name?"  
  
"...Evans....." There was a long pause. "You know, you can't throw a brick in Wales without hitting an Evans. Or a Jones. Or a Phillips. I thought I should say that. I think I know that."  
  
Dante crouched down, closer to her. "...Uh....huh. So, what the hell were you doing in Northeast DC, getting run down by demons?"  
  
"....I was? Don't remember. I remember.....remember.....oo."  
  
Dante blinked, eyes sharpening in interest. "Remember what?"  
  
"That Zorba's on campus makes a *wicked* good gyro."  
  
Dante smacked forehead with hand. "Campus *where*?"  
  
Real distress showed in those silvershot eyes. "....I don't *remember*..."  
  
Dante curbed his rising frustration. "....never mind. Go back to sleep, Annie."  
  
Anne smiled, distress fading. "Okay." Her lashes drooped shut and she started to lightly snore. Dante and Trish looked at each other over her.  
  
"Okay....this is getting seriously screwy."  
  
Dante's eyes narrowed. "You think she might be a plant?"  
  
"Don't know. My gut tells me otherwise. Plus after you were done with him, Mundus wasn't exactly in a shape to try anything cute."  
  
"I'll trust your gut." Dante paused, eyes shielded by bangs. "Mine's been wrong in the past. Heh."  
  
"Ow."  
  
"Not a jab at you, babe. Just fact."  
  
"I know. Still, ow."  
  
Dante rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful. "Amnesia. Though it seems spotty. And the *weirdest* eyes. She doesn't 'feel' demonic to me, though. You?" Trish shook her head. "Demons are a bit more resilient than that, too."  
  
"They were hacking on her pretty good. So, why would they want her anyway?"  
  
Dante shook his head, pale bangs fluttering a bit. "Damned if I know. C'mon...we need to get DNC opened for the day. Feel free to use your evil machine to do research."  
  
  
  
Anne opened her eyes again later that day, still feeling low but a better kind of low than before. She contemplated the ceiling of wherever she was at , noting whoever owned it *really* needed to give it a good dusting. There was dried blood on her clothes....what was left of them. It stuck to her skin. She tried to move. She said, upon trying this, "Ow."  
  
A face put its way in her contemplation of the ceiling, smiling a bit. It was the blonde woman from before. "Hey there. How do you feel?"  
  
"Like the grounds for the All-Star Cleats Stomping Competition. I look like it too. Other than that, absolutely lovely and I'll tell Martha Stewart about the accomodations." The blonde snickered.  
  
"Okay, I like you. Name's Trish. Think you're up to moving enough so we can at least fix the dress situation? My stuff's a bit big for you but it'll do until later."  
  
Anne pondered. "I have to go to the loo, too."  
  
"Two birds, one stone. Think you can handle that bit by yourself?"  
  
Anne pondered. "My pride will try to make damn sure of that. Please, no interfering, even if I get killed trying. It'll be bad enough I pulled an Elvis on the crapper." Trish snickered much louder at that.  
  
"Right, up you go." The other woman gently helped her up, showing no sign of strain at Anne's slight weight. Anne winced but otherwise did not protest, and with more wincing, managed with Trish's help to limp over to the bathroom, Trish meanwhile muttering something about someone named Dante and hoping he cleaned it recently. Anne got through her effort on the way there a general impression of simultaneous vague untidiness, furnishing uncoordination, and spartanness to the living room that managed to scream "bachelor."   
  
The bathroom was clean enough and Anne managed to make use of it without needing Trish's help to dent her pride. A pair of sweatpants and a tee were shoved through the door along with unmentionables and the bloody shreds of clothing were dispensed of. The silver necklace with two Celtic-knot medallions she left around her neck, as there was no need to have it moved. By the end of the ordeal, Anne was sweating, both from effort and from the sight of just how much of her body the bandages covered.   
  
Trish gently caught her at the door and helped her back over. "You all right?"  
  
Anne shook her head. "....I got hurt, bad, didn't I." Trish nodded. "I....I don't remember it. At all. None of it. Just...running."  
  
"That's all?"  
  
"Fear, running....that's it." She flopped back down onto the couch. "Memories. They don't...all fit together." It scares me, she didn't mention. Her eyelids drooped despite herself.  
  
Trish gently touched her shoulder. "You're tired. We'll worry about it later."  
  
But Anne was already asleep again.  
  
  
Trish glared at the LCD screen of her Titanium Powerbook.   
  
She muttered under her breath. "Not a damn good thing." There wasn't anything in the traditional demonology databases she subscribed to. Either that, or she was looking in the wrong places. The little bit Anne had rambled in her sleep had been precious little information.  
  
The phone rang. She grabbed it.  
  
"Devil Never Cry." She promptly let the issue slip in trying to deal with some ignoramus who didn't know the password for one or actual demonic activity when it happened for another. 


	3. Knocking On Forbidden Doors

Anne's eyes peeled open, reluctantly. She didn't know how long it had been. She badly needed to relieve herself again. She thus endeavored on an epic quest to accomplish this. After wincing some she ended up crawling her way there as verticality was a bit much for her still.   
  
Damned...eternity...of...twelve...feet...   
  
She got there, did her business, and for variety, crawled back. Hit a desk, tried for vertical for a moment, pulled open a drawer... My, whosever's place this was had a thing for letter openers. And rubber bands. And twisting around paper clips. And hmm... Anne supported herself on one arm on the desktop, looking inside, shuffling at the photograph.  
  
It was an old one. Or had seen some experiences....she felt a cold shock as she saw the two people in it. One of them, the woman in red...looked a great deal like Trish. Not completely...the lines of her face was softer in places where Trish's were sharper and narrower, but the similarity was still beyond denial.  
  
Anne looked at the other person in the picture. The man...the silver-haired gentleman with the archaic clothing and the monocle, and the attitude of quiet dignity. She was staring out at the picture-taker serenely, lovely face gilded in the sunlight, but his eyes were on her, as though she were his entire world, and it was a wonderful one...  
  
Anne's eyes burned, looking. Something swam under the ragged patchwork of memories that made up her self, threatened to breach the surface...something painful. She shoved it down, the picture trembling in her hand, and not just from weakness.   
  
Then startled, as footsteps made their way up the stairs. They were too heavy to be Trish's. A little cold stab of fear hit her at the image of being caught by the place's resident in flagrante looking at personal items, and she shoved the photo quietly back into the drawer, then flopped down on the floor again, hissing in pain as still unhealed wounds were jogged. She'd gotten a mind-boggling foot and a half back to the couch when the door opened, giving her a panoramic view of two shiny black leather boots and some red leather above their tops.  
  
"What the heck are you doing on the floor?" a vaguely familiar voice asked dryly.  
  
Anne tried to get her field of view up some, as she was lying flat on the floor. "I so admired the pattern of your carpeting I had to look at it up close. Plus me bladder was complaining about accomodations so had to fix that. You haven't vacuumed recently, have you?"  
  
"....No." Pause. "What does *that* have to do with anything?"  
  
"It smells dusty."  
  
There was a slight snort and she squeaked as she was unceremoniously but gently picked up, hustled over, and placed back on the couch. She got a vague olfactory impression of a slight undertone of cigarettes to the leather and a visual one of a black-strapped red vest. "You...are weird." The attached face hove into view above her, wearing an expression of bemused testiness on its narrow, angelic features to go with the voice. She realized absently she'd seen the face before and recently. Even more recently than when she'd actually seen the face's owner in person.  
  
"I believe I worked on it....er?" One brass-knuckled glove was grasping one of her wrists, firmly, turning the underside up. His eyes were narrowed underneath that eerily reminiscent silver-white hair.  
  
"So..." he remarked evenly. "When did ya try to kill yourself?"  
  
Anne stared at the healed, livid scars.  
  
"I....don't know."  
  
He stared at her, pale eyes boring mercilessly into hers. "You'd think you'd remember trying to attempt suicide. If you can remember where to get gyros on campus, you think you'd flocking well know how and why you tried to off yourself."  
  
"I don't *know*." Anne started to tremble, seeing the blatant physical evidence, and finding nothing to correspond inside.  
  
His grip tightened on her wrist, almost painfully. "*Tell*me."  
  
"I don't *KNOW*!" she half-screamed at him, shaking. "I don't know a *damned* thing! I don't know where or when I was born exactly I don't know where I went to school, I don't....I don't know way too much! I didn't even fucking know I *tried* to kill myself until that!" She wrenched her wrist out of his hand by raw leverage, hiding her face in her hands, the words spilling out of her in a sudden tide of black pain. "Damn it, quit it. Go away. Give me enough damned time to heal and I'll be out of your damn life." She went and shook for a while, hoping that if she ignored him enough he'd disappear.  
  
There was a very lengthy silence.   
  
He said quietly, "You can't until you find out the rest of your memories."  
  
"What the hell do *you* care?" she spat back, voice strangled.  
  
She felt a sudden weight thump onto the couch, just past her feet. She got a glimpse of red leather through her trembling fingers, and somehow just *knew* that he was looking at her. Pity? Contempt? Condemnation? God knew what.  
  
"Dante Sparda," he said after a couple of silent minutes.  
  
She was taken aback, one wild teared eye peeking through her fingers. "...what?"  
  
His face was quiet. "'S my name. I don't go flinging it out to anybody. If you want to know why I care, if you *have* to know why I care, what happened to you isn't natural, and I get a bee in my bonnet about that kind of thing. Call it understanding from personal experience. So, sorry, Annie, you're not getting rid of either Trish or I until we figure out what's going on."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"So quit moving, because you're not healing any faster wandering around. Or shaking us. Want some pizza?"  
  
Anne wandered around mentally for a minute or so, completely at a loss after that non sequitur, impulses and subconscious memories at war. Her stomach let her know it wasn't injured by growling. "Uh. ...yeah." She paused. "Where am I?"  
  
The weight relieved itself from the couch. She peeked through fingers, cautiously lowering them when she saw an image of red leather coat and pale hair disappearing through another doorway.   
  
Dante called back, "Washington, District of Columbia, one of the really ripe sections of town. Another reason you don't want to go out of doors alone. But hell, the rent's cheap for DC. Want more specifics, above my business. I do some PI work." There were some scuffling around noises.  
  
"Should I be eating this in my ah, condition?" Anne paused after her question. "And will I need to pay you?"  
  
Dante wandered out again, hauling a two-liter of Coke, a box of obviously cold leftover pizza, and a pitcher of water. "Nah. Consider it free. All of it. And I have faith in my, er, ability to gauge your being healed."  
  
"Where's Trish?" A bit nervous again, eyes flickering about.  
  
Dante lookd at her strangely and made a face after a second. "Sheesh. Do you think *everything* comes with strings attached?"  
  
"Wha?"  
  
"Makin' observation. Yes, beautiful, you're easy on the eyes, but I'd like to think I have enough control over myself that my partner doesn't need to be around all the time to protect your virtue." Anne flushed, mortified. "Besides, finding out what's the deal here is going to be its own reward, if you think I'm gonna really need one." Dante offered her a plate with some cold pizza with one gloved hand. "Want some parmesan with that? I'd have heated it except the nuke is broke."  
  
  
Dante contemplated the smeary light through the window reflecting off the cymbals of his office drum set a few days later. The tableau was framed through the crossed toes of his boots as they were propped on his desk. Under the dull rumble of Alice In Chains being played at volumes fit to wake the Underworld, he heard the muted whirr of Trish's USB printer coughing up random sheets of information for the office vertical files. Trish herself was glowering at a pad of Post-It Notes, chin propped in one hand, the other idly doodling on the pad with a pencil.  
  
"So, Trish."  
  
"Myah?"  
  
"How's Annie doing?"  
  
"Much better. She's going under her own power now, though she still seems to tire easily. Not too badly, considering. She's healing well enough."  
  
"Think things there are a little screwy?"  
  
Trish snorted a hollow laugh. "Is the sun warm? Are bears Catholic? Does the pope--"  
  
"Me and my questions. No, really."  
  
"Yes. "  
  
"S'not just me then. Something did a number on her. Not just the memories, either. Pardon my French, but she seemed to be a case even *before* that."  
  
Trish looked up, frowning. "Really? She seems like a nice enough girl, aside from the memory loss and being kind of uh...eccentric."  
  
"Trish, she tried to kill herself at some point in the past. See the scars? Nemmind she doesn't remember it. And she's twitchy around me, acts like I'm going to hurt her, and acts like there ain't no free lunch."  
  
Trish....frowned further. "That's......weird. We're seeing different things?"  
  
"Maybe." Dante pondered further. "S'ironic. You're the one that was created the full demon and you've seen less of how people really are. Whereas I'm the cynical bastard."  
  
"No saying I'm a full demon now." She frowned even more, layering it on top of her previous frowns.  
  
"Point being, she looks a lot to me like someone that's been abused in the past. Not a bad person, but..." He trailed off. "I don't know if that's a factor or not." He went and flipped a pencil off his chair armrest, letting it bounce off the wall eraser-first. "Man, I've gotten to be a mouthy bastard recently."  
  
Trish collated things and flung the bound pile at his desk, landing it three points even and knocking a beer bottle off Dante's desk. "I don't know, you're still the same lovely, charming, pissanty SOB I've known *this* whiile. It's so cute."  
  
"Bite me."  
  
"Mundus will take up the macarena first."  
  
There was a pause of nearly a full, fascinated minute.  
  
"...I'm not going there, Trish."  
  
"I'm so sorry, Dante."  
  
"You *better* be." Dante shuddered.  
  
"You started it."  
  
"Did not."  
  
"Did to...what were we on?"  
  
"Maybe she thinks she's safer around you because you're female too. Whichever guy did that to her needs some hurting."  
  
Trish made a small wry heh noise. "I suppose we don't mention the Sword and Motorcycle Incident to her so she keeps her illusion?" Dante's mouth widened into a smirk. Trish stuck a tongue out at the smirk.   
  
"Duh." Dante then leaned back further, shifting his attention to the ceiling, eyes distant.   
  
*Genetics are destiny, my ass,* he muttered to himself. *If dad bought into that, I wouldn't be here. Plus all I have to do anymore is take the Blue or Yellow Metro lines out to get an eyeful of the big hole in the Pentagon that proves pure humans can be as bad or worse than demons, never mind the day to day crap I deal with. Evil's evil.   
  
*S'worse, just for being so banal. Banal like slitting your wrists or beating up on someone because you can and they can't fight back. The other evil I can beat hell out of easy. The stuff going on here....I can't. Yet. * He closed his eyes.  
*Damn, where did things get so complicated?* 


	4. The Presence of Mirrors

In the presence of mirrors   
I come face to face with you  
Which is me?  
--PM Dawn "The Presence of Mirrors"  
  
  
Anne stared at herself, in the mirror.  
  
"I didn't look like this." She leaned over the grubby white porcelain sink and looked into it. She whispered, "I know that much..not the eyes...."  
  
What should have been staring back at her was dark brown, large, liquid irises. The silver streaks spoking out from the pupils and greying the brown out were new. She didn't know what had happened to cause it. The spokes gleamed like metal in the dingy flourescent light of the bathroom light over the mirror. Somehow, that scared her worse than anything. More than the unreal pallor to her features reminding her of the sink, and definitely more than the slightly pointed canine teeth. She *remembered* the teeth, at least. She'd had them since they came in at puberty. Some girlfriend had made a joke sometime of what Halloween costumes she could use. (Anne'd cheerfully flipped her off. But what coffee joint they were sitting in, or where, or even what street or city fell into a void.)  
  
The rest seemed all right enough. Five feet five inches, very slender to almost fragile looking, shoulder-lengths of raven hair, elfin, triangular features. She'd gotten looks on campus, oh yes, and inappropriate suggestions from drunken fraternity boys as she'd shoved shots at them in some unknown bar. Crap about how it wasn't just drinks they needed from the bartender.  
  
God, she'd hated it. She couldn't remember everything, but this was another thing entirely. She hated the idea with a venom she didn't know she'd had.  
  
She winced a bit as a half-healed wound twinged, one hand going to cradle the offended part of the ribcage. It was one of the bad ones, the one that had gone deep. /Iron taste in her mouth, liquid gurgle in her lungs, running, falling, red darkness across her vision, a distant shout of rage--/ and the rest of the recollection fell into the abyss. She shuddered, nausea hitting her, and she folded down and put her forehead on her knees.  
  
I know it sounds absurd  
but please tell me who I am  
who I am   
  
The dual pendant necklace around her neck seemed to feel even colder for a second.  
  
There was the distant sound of a door opening and someone entering. "Anne?"   
Trish's voice could be heard calling out.  
  
Anne gave a monumental effort and pulled herself together, making herself stand and seem unaffected. "Yeah?" she called out.  
  
"Oh, cool. You feel up to going out? We're going to get you some new clothes. It's a five-minute walk to the the bus stop and I don't want to take the Beast into Du Pont."  
  
"...Sure." She slowly walked out.  
  
  
Trish cautiously peeled away some bandages later, getting a hiss from Anne.   
  
"Hmm. Looks like it's getting there. Maybe some scarring, but not bad. It should fade."  
  
Anne cautiously twisted around to look at her over her shoulder, still holding the shirt up. "That tape pulls."  
  
"Sorry." Trish cut away some more of the offending tape. "I'm keeping a few bandages on the ones that aren't entirely closed just to be careful, but for the rest at least your midsection's no longer going to look like The Mummy." She continued with her task, redoing the bandaging on the few remaining unhealed areas, leaving the rest of the skin to breathe. After she was done, she carefully helped the other woman put her tee shirt down. "Done."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"N'prob." Trish slid back into her leather jacket, which had a rather fetching stylized lightning-bolt theme edging around the front zipper and merging into the collar.  
  
"Where's Dante?"  
  
"Out and about. Had a job to do."  
  
Anne nodded. "Where do you live?"  
  
Trish pondered. "Few miles from here. Bit of a classier neighborhood, though that isn't saying much. Why?"  
  
"I...uh. Didn't know, really. I'm not sure where I should be staying."  
  
"Whichever you prefer. You're just in Dante's place because that was the closest."  
  
Anne nodded.  
  
"I'd....try to earn my keep, somehow."  
  
Trish smiled a little bit. "All in its time. You heal first."  
  
"My clothes?  
  
"Are perfectly good coming with. Hm, more thinking about it, be best you stay with me. I've got room and Dante's idea of housekeeping gets scary at times. Plus it's safer where I am. It's also closer to Adams-Morgan and the Kalorama. Good resturaunts there."  
  
Anne made a face. "Cold pizza."  
  
"Exactly." Trish grinned wryly, remembering Dante's usual tack when feeding himself. "Plus, he gets...protective of his place. I don't mind houseguests." Trish smiled. "I honestly don't. I'm new to the area myself, more or less, so I don't know much."  
  
Anne arched eyebrows inquiringly. Trish smiled a little bit.  
  
"...Long story."  
  
"Want to hear it."  
  
"You will." /If I can think of a way to censor the weird stuff so she doesn't get psyched,,/ Trish thought.  
  
  
It waited patiently in the basement. The area was pitch black and smelt of urine, blood, rat droppings, and mildew, which it paid no attention to.   
  
There had been a homeless person there, which had been killed. The gang that used the place to sell and smoke crack had evacuated from the condemned tenement after portions of the former vagrant started to show up. The rats had been more sensible, and had fled when it arrived and stayed away.  
  
Shortly after that, one of the gang that had tried to shoot the imposter down had run from the place screaming at a glimpse of movement and what caused it. So now it waited. It hated being far from the sea, in the hideously dry basement, with the dried blood and growing stench of decay. But it had no choice. It had to go from the bay, far, far from its normal grounds, and so it went.   
  
An eye rolled, restive at the stench and muffled noise of traffic, and chewed at a portion of arm.   
  
Darkness would come. It would hunt then.  
  
  
  
*Lyrics in the chapter came from Supertramp's "The Logical Song." 


	5. Echoes of Futures Passed

And I am overcome  
holy water in my lungs  
and I am overcome  
--Live, "Overcome"  
  
  
Sirens wailed as she walked through sharded glass and rubble, her bare feet uncut though the ground was bitterly cold. Havoc reigned, ambulances pullling up near the smoking remnants of a storefront, the police beginning to desperately guide bystanders around the carnage, rescue workers starting to move in. Shattered concrete, glass, stone, steel....and blood and body parts strewn around like a cannibal butcher shop. /   
  
/The wind was icy with winter, whipping around her gown, though she was curiously detached from the feeling....the cold was there, but did not chill./  
  
/A bobby looked at...no, through her, moving on as though she wasn't there. She shuddered, stepping around the bodies and the almost unreal red color of the spilled blood smearing ground and skin and cloth alike../   
  
/It was all so distant, and at the same time horrid, to see the corpses. Death and dismemberment had given the final indignity to them. They looked human, but were not, not like the wounded sitting there screaming and wailing in agony, praying for God to help them. They did not move, or breathe, or speak. They were no longer people, merely people-shaped lumps of meat; objects with no more personality than a chair. In an absent, distant way, she noticed a woman's pale face still wore too much frosted lavender eyeshadow; all the worse for the face no longer being attached to the body./  
  
/As if not willed by herself, she walked--drifted, rather, near the epicenter of the blast. There was some distant cursing and talk about "IRA" and "casualties" from the workers on scene, trying to heave debris off of people that might still be living. Little success seemed to be had: more of the stretchers moving off carried more still, completely covered forms than partially covered with worried paramedics hovering around./  
  
No....I don't want to remember....no.... /she cried... But her feet kept moving, towards the worst of the destruction../   
  
/Two forms ahead...one unrecognizable with burns and slices, lying face down. The other was on its side, dark hair covering the face. A paramedic dashed over, closed his eyes, then grimly worked on trying to turn the second body face up, the hair drifting back, revealing--/  
  
She doubled up with a scream, sitting up in a puddle of icy sweat, wrapping arms around her knees and sobbing, black hair hiding her face.  
  
"The Hell? *Anne?*" The light flared on, causing her to squint. She curled up even more on the sofa-bed, able to do little other than shake, getting a vague image of a nightshirt and an angel's halo of long, disarrayed golden hair silhouetted by the hall light.  
  
"G---guh.... nn....nnnhh..." Anne sat there and shook.  
Trish was by her side immediately, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, looking groggy but worried. "Are you okay? You screamed like..."  
  
Anne tried to get her racing heart back under control, taking deep breaths. After a moment, she managed a hoarse "Nightmare...."  
  
Trish cursed softly. "Oh, Anne...."  
  
"...don't even know what it was..."  
  
"...the nightmare?"  
  
"dead people....sirens...bombs...." Anne's accent had thickened, a musical lilt strengthening with fear. "was there, couldn't do anything....oh God, no....don't make me remember....NO...."  
  
"Shhhhh.....shhhhhh.....easy....easy....." Trish gently took the smaller woman in her arms and rocked her gently. "It'll be okay....it'll be okay...." Anne wept quietly, mortified at her weakness and the fear still running in her veins like poison. Eventually, she calmed down to empty bleakness, though Trish carefully kept holding her.  
  
"...do this more times it seems sometimes....heh...." Trish muttered absently to herself.  
  
"mm?"  
  
"Eh heh. Nothing much." Trish's shadowed face smiled crookedly. Anne nodded tiredly, not feellng like pushing.  
  
"You okay now?"  
"No," Anne whispered. "I'll live though."  
  
Trish nodded, rubbing her back. "Do you still want to go to Alexandria tomorrow, then? We can hold off if you need."  
  
"NO! No...no holding off....got to do something...."  
  
Trish paused, then nodded faintly. "...All right. Sleeping Beauty won't be getting up until one anyway, so we can probably steal the Goat Monster until then. At least it'll get us out of DC for a bit."  
  
  
Anne had managed to get some sleep, though her eyes were shadowed and grim even in the bright morning light as they slowly made their way south towards the Potomac. Trish couldn't help but notice it even as she steered the decrepit red Dodge Ram pickup around a lagging Toyota, the detached muffler causing the engine to whine in protest as she shifted gears.   
  
Internally, she spared a few seconds to mutter profanities at Dante for not keeping the truck in better shape. She'd managed to get the front cleaned out, but the back was still a haven for the unmentionable contents of old MacDonald's lunch bags, cups of half-full cold coffee, and probably worse. And he had the *nerve* to bitch about the decor of Mallet Island.... Trish pondered and considered that given the nature of the now-destroyed island's master, perhaps her partner in crime had a point.  
  
Still, that was *no* call for him to try to recreate the evolution of life in the truckbed.  
  
Anne startled.   
  
"Trish, did something just move in the..."  
  
"Don't think about it. Just don't. I don't know what the *hell* he puts back there. Or when he last cleaned it out. It was before I came on board."  
  
Anne looked green and definitely did *not* look at the back through the rearview mirror again. Trish grinned under her sunglasses as the truck dragged onto US 66 and then Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac. Anne proceeded to distract herself with wondering eyes being drawn to the back side of the Lincoln Memorial and beyond that, the reflecting pool and Washington Monument as their path brought them close. Trish gave her a glance and grinned a bit more; it was obvious that amnesia or no amnesia, Anne'd never been in the capital city of the United States before. Trish remembered feeling much the same way, after Mallet....  
  
"Messy place...but it has a kind of uh, charm under the scummier bits," Anne remarked absently.  
  
"Kind of like America in general." Trish chuckled. "Ever been in the States before, that you can remember?"  
  
"Oh, yeah....went to university here. That much I can remember."  
  
"Not DC though?" Anne shook her head. "Good, well, there's at least things to see here." Trish let her take in the sight of the Capitol and Washington Monument as they paced the Potomac on the Virginia side of river. "People are still a bit twitchy after well...a few months ago, but life goes on."  
  
"Mm?"  
  
"You'll...well, probably see in a few minutes. We'll be passing by the Pentagon," The Goat Monster groaned complainingly again as Trish got the thing onto 233.   
  
Anne was silent for a few minutes, eyes wide and brow furrowed, before speaking again. "What happened?" Trish boggled a bit under her shades at the honest look of incomprehension on the other woman's features.  
  
"You....honestly don't remember."  
  
"No," Anne replied in a small voice. "I don't even know what you're talking about." Their route brought them in view of limestone walls, serried ranks of windows in four levels, low but enormous in scale. There was a spartan sense to it and the surrounding area that all but sang "military" to Anne.  
  
"That the Pentagon?"  
  
"Mm-hm. The north part of it, anyway. The real fun happened on the south and southwest faces....wonder where they're at on it. Heard it might take as long as three years for them to rebuild.....Anne?"  
  
Anne stared fixedly at the massive military complex, the stench of something burning and acrid suddenly clutching her nostrils, her eyes shining abrupt raw silver--  
  
/The massive commercial jet shone white in the clear morning sunlight, circling above the nation's capital, the sun glinting off the American Airlines logo on the tail of the plane and off the waters of the far-below Potomac. It was a serene and lovely sight, from above. /  
  
/Below, workers fled their heeled dress shoes and ran for their lives, sirens screaming in the background, the defense forces scrambling, but delayed, too late, far too late...  
Inside the passenger cabin, there was braced numbness and horror...nobody knew it explicitly as of yet, but the dull peace of animals waiting for the slaughter was all too real, all too felt. There were muffled sobs, quiet assertions of love as cellphones clicked on and off for their final times./  
  
/Inside, the pilot cursed, his eyes scanning the city below. The primary target couldn't be found in the landscape. The marble dome nearby beckoned, but that was already selected by his comrades on another flight. It would make their sacrifice redundant, and the Americans' air force was coming closer to thwarting him by the second. With a final decision and nod at his copilot, the circle was finished, and begun its penultimate approach into the secondary target./  
  
/He grinned fiercely, dark eyes glazed and fixed in fanaticism, fear, deadly resolve. Soon, he would be with the virgins of Paradise, reaping a martyr's reward. Fear and triumph warred in his breast with the last few beats of his heart as the jet plummeted, roaring in as the wall of the Pentagon grew to meet it, thin screams rising from the passenger cabin in counterpart to the unified shout of the red-headbanded pilots and their cohorts./  
  
/"ALLAH'U AKHBAR!!!"/  
  
/With a rendering crash, American Airlines Flight 77 and the southwest face of the United States Pentagon met, consumed by a secondary sun of erupting jet fuel./  
  
Anne doubled over, keening shrilly, hands twisting in her hair, honks of protest arising outside as Trish courted accident several times before she wrestled the Ram to the side of the road. Inside, Anne kept screaming.  
  
"Anne! Dammit, ANNE!" Trish shut off the engine and frantically grabbed her companion's shoulders. Anne was in no state to hear at first. Trish shook her hard, causing the shrilling cry to be stopped and be replaced by whimpers, Anne's eyes rising to meet hers, lost, terrified, tormented, apocalypse playing over and over in the now mirrorlike irises.   
  
Trish wasn't a woman used to fear. Her origins and the kind of work she was in burned the more trivial sorts of it out of after a while. But the expression and the alien, inhuman shade of those eyes made her blood run cold.  
  
Anne looked at an inner vista best not described for a few infinite seconds more, then closed her eyes, collapsing into wild shakes. Trish ignored the intermittent annoyed honks outside and rubbed Anne's back while the horror ran itself out. When Anne opened her eyes again, they were their former silver-streaked brown, though the terror remained.  
  
"What. Happened?" Trish hissed, her sunglassed eyes wide.  
  
Anne fought to make words. "the plane.....they flew the plane in.....they killed so many people....so many dead..."  
  
Trish cursed. "*What*?"  
  
"all for a fucking cause...they killed themselves and innocent people...why..."  
  
Now it was Trish's turn to shake, for several minutes, and desperately wish someone, Dante, *anybody* was there to hold herself as the enormity of Anne's ramblings began to sink in. It took an enormous amount of resolve to regain her own control back.  
  
"Screw it," she said at last, once she thought she had control over her voice again. "We're going back to DNC. Yesterday." 


	6. DNC, We Have A Problem...

"You said she said she didn't even *remember* September 11!" Dante spat, whirling in another orbit of his attempt to wear a hole through DNC's floor. Trish looked at him wearily as she leaned against the desk and watched him pace, bright defiant red against the evening blinds, his long trenchcoat slapping against his legs. His normally silvery eyes were glowing faintly red, a sure sign of the level of his own upset.  
  
"Dante....she didn't. After we got back, I asked her as much as I dared about things. She didn't remember anything about what happened to the World Trade Center. In fact, when I showed her a picture of New York *before* the 11th and asked what was in the picture that was missing *now*, she said 'nothing.' Then I told her. She was ready to throw up, and she wasn't faking."  
  
"And still, you said she got details off the Pentagon attack that she *couldn't* have known. And didn't."  
  
"That's what I *said*, dammit!"  
  
"Shanksville? Flight 93?"  
  
"She didn't know about that either. But was rambling something about the Capitol being targeted by somebody other than the terrorists on Flight 77. I didn't push, Dante. She was in a bad way and I'm not feeling too great at the moment either."  
  
Dante stopped, and plopped onto the office couch, his fingers lacing into his hair. "...Holy shit."  
  
Trish sagged over next to him on his right side. "My thoughts exactly." Her eyes closed miserably. Dante paused a moment, then slowly put an arm around her, which she leaned into.  
  
"...sorry, Trish."  
  
"No bad, Dante."  
  
"I thought she knew. Didn't realize she *wasn't* using my TV when I was out when she was with me." He paused, remembered, and coughed. "Uh, well, it was broke anyway."  
  
Trish snorted. "Everything you have is broke." She smiled tinily. "I don't have one. I just....you think she'd have at least picked something up from when we were outside, but..."  
  
"I think everybody thought everybody else knew about it. And you and she were only out a couple brief times anyway, right?" Dante shrugged. "A' course, this leave some interesting questions."  
  
"Like...what caused her to forget, and where *was* she when it happened?"  
  
Dante nodded, bangs fluttering, then got up and started pacing again, less feverishly than before. "No kidding. She can remember where to get gyros but doesn't remember things like attempting suicide or major terrorist attacks."  
  
"Or dream of them and not remember the context. Or get near the locales of them and freak out."  
  
"Between you, me, and the wall, babe, it's time to really start digging to find out the cause. Because whatever happened near the Pentagon with her, it wasn't normal." He snorted. "Yeah, like any of this entire situation is."  
  
"And nor is what happened to her memories."  
  
"Duh."  
  
"Duh seconded."  
  
"Where is she?"  
  
"Back at my place." She shifted nervously. "Put her under a bit with some happy pills, but I don't want to leave her for very long, Dante. She's....well. She's very fragile right now."  
  
Dante nodded, lighting up a cigarette. Trish fought a wrinkle of her nose. Dante studiously ignored her and took a couple puffs of the Marlboro. He exhaled, a cloud of smoke wafting out of his lungs.  
  
"I'm going with ya, Trish."  
  
"Is that a good idea?"  
  
"Nope. It's a damn stupid one. Got any less stupid ideas other than hands off until the other shoe drops? Which, given our lives, it will?"  
  
"...No."  
  
He took another puff, looking meditative.  
  
"That's really a revolting habit, Dante." Trish said.  
  
"Who died and made you...don't answer that." Dante smirked faintly.   
  
Trish snorted, but didn't follow up on that. "Feeling jumpy?"  
  
"What, me, the fact I'm nic-fitting? Maybe. Beats the alternative."  
  
"Chewing up the scenery like a good little half-devil?"  
  
"Rar." He puffed again, the nicotine visibly starting to take effect, then stubbed the cancer stick out on the heel of his boot and tossed it into the trash. "Let's go. I'll order 'za when we get there."  
  
  
Trish put the key into the hole and stopped dead when the door swung open without the key being turned. Next to her, Dante's eyes narrowed as his sense of smell was assailed by a sudden scent of fear from Trish. Dulled as his sense was from the cigarette, there was no mistaking it. Trish was inside and flicking on the lights, taking immediate stock of the place.   
  
There was no sign of disturbance, burglary or assault, except for the sheets on the couch dragged onto the floor and trailing away in a white spill.  
  
"Oh god...." She raised her voice. "Anne, are you there? *Anne*?"   
  
Dante bit down a growl as the stench of yet more terror hit him. It wasn't Trish's, and it was older, and longer lasting, and deeper. Under it he detected undertones that made it definitely Anne's...human femininity, and an odd tang he'd never been able to put a name to before now, but reminded him of cold rainwater, stone, and apple blossoms. The fine hairs on the back of his neck ruffled as Trish dashed in, making a quick case of the rest of her apartment in the futile hope Anne was there. Dante already knew it was no use.  
  
"She's--" Trish began.  
  
"Gone. I know. The scent's not too fresh. Shit."   
  
Trish closed her eyes and bit her lip until it bled. "Dammit. I thought the Valium had put her out long enough..."  
  
Dante was taking a quick view of the situation. "Apparently not. Nobody else was here that I can scent." The nostrils of his aristocratic nose flared again, as he walked back into the hall. "And it comes out here. She freaked and ran, Trish."  
  
Trish paused, her eyes widening in horror at the implications of a defenseless, scared and very likely still groggy woman in one of the worse sections of the District of Columbia after nightfall. "*Dammit*."  
  
Dante's tone went businesslike. "Trish..stay here. Keep the lines open in case I call. I'm going after her."  
  
"Don't you need backup?" Trish paced fretfully on the rug, the leather of her jacket bunching under her clenched fingers.  
  
Dante shook his head. "Not for this, babe. The scent's not fresh and your presence'd confuse the trail. I gotta play bloodhound. But if I call, come runnin'."  
  
Trish nodded, already moving for a DC map for the surrounding areas. Dante was already out the door in a sweep of red leather.  
  
Trish let out a shaking breath, starting to look at the layout of the districts on the map.  
  
"You better be right on not needing, Spardaspawn, because if you aren't, I'm going to kill you, so help me," she muttered, fighting off a sick feeling of helplessness and settling in for a little eternity of wait. 


	7. Hunters and Hunted

But now I'm in too deep  
It's got me so that I just can't sleep  
Ooh, get me out of here  
Please, get me out of here  
Just help me I'll do anything  
Anything  
If you just help  
Get me out of here  
  
--Genesis "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight"  
  
  
/Make it stop,/ she begged. /Please make it stop..../  
  
Her shoulder slammed into a chain-link fence, and she let out a dulled whimper of pain, her vision doubling again, though less than before. She kept moving forward, trying to outrun the taste of horror and death in her head, the burning light of conflagration that kept playing over and over in memory that wasn't there but was. Her shoes scraped the sidewalk as she wove her way down the darkened street in her own little nightmare.  
  
"Ooo, heyyyy, honey, wanna play?" a male voice called to her from behind. She picked up her pace, the stagger drawing nothing but a jeering chuckle. He knew vulnerable prey when he saw it, she absently realized, and was toying with her. "Pretty girl like you shouldn't be out on the streets,."  
Pretty girl shouldn't be seeing stuff. Pretty girl shouldn't have scars on her wrists and a full head of gapped memories. Pretty girl shouldn't be in the wrong country, in the wrong place, with the wrong people, who kept *asking* her things she couldn't answer, made her look inside her head, and cringe at the holes. Pretty girl shouldn't think taunting gangbangers and a metropolitan area after dark was more understandable and comprehensible than the kindness of a blonde woman and the taciturn inquisitions and care of a red-dressed young man with ice hair and eyes like a wolf's.   
  
But they were. And it kept *hurting* her.  
  
Make it stop, she whispered.  
  
Someone wolf whistled. She ignored, turned down another street, heading westward towards the distant blue aftertaste of the setted sun. She still heard footfalls though, keeping pace. Only a matter of time before they grew bored and closed in. And then? The necklace felt bitterly cold against her neck.  
  
Onward.  
  
Someone decided to dash up and grope her, giggling. There were appreciative hoots from his compatriots as Anne's breast got a contact it didn't want and an arm wrapped around her waist. She squealed in pure panic as the mocking laughter of the gang sounded in her ears, the rest closing in for their own turns. She struggled, her captor apparently enjoying himself and his control too much to cut to the chase right away.   
  
Her perceptions tunneled inward. No escape...  
  
NONE....   
  
Conscious thought left, the animal taking over...  
  
*Crack*  
  
The gloating laugh abruptly morphed into a scream of pain and a curse, as the woman managed to break away with a frantic twist, staggering away, fingers arched into panicked claws. He recovered himself, holding onto his shin, eyes glaring pure hate at his prey over bleeding weals on his cheek.  
  
"Fucking *bitch*! Gonna make you *bleed* for that!" He limped upright, teeth baring at the pain of his shin, whipping out a gun. "Get that cunt! Make her *pay*! No one crosses Alfonse! GET HER, YOU ASSHOLES!" There was a ripple of rising shouts as the others left their state of shock behind to finally take him up on it, trailing the slender figure already running for it.   
  
Anne's legs pumped, her heart hammering even more, the fear still live in her nerves, knowing it would be worse than rape or maiming if she were caught now, knowing she couldn't go up one against a half dozen.   
  
Absently, she licked away the blood still traced on the nails of her right hand, even as she continued her headlong charge away.  
  
But fighting had felt so *good*, for once, for a change..  
  
A bullet whined past her, bursting into an overturned garbage can. She gulped, continuing her dash, her breath roaring into lungs, blood churning through veins scoured clean of the last traces of sedative by adrenalin. There was another shot, chipping off asphalt that scored into a leg, the blood tracking unfelt and leaving small splatters black in the streetlights. She stumbled momentarily, recovered, kept running. But some of her pursuers were faster and had more stamina, and were drawing up within easy firing range of her with their metal penis extensions.  
  
/I won't go quietly/, the small voice inside her head uttered calmly, under the din of panic.  
  
"What the fuck is taking so long to fire, man? Can't find your fucking triggerOh MY GOD HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT *HOLY SHIT*!"   
  
The shout trailed off into a screech of shock, as from a perpendicular street an eerie howl rose. Counterpointed by the unearthly wail, a hammering clatter exploded, and then a black form, glistening in the hazy mercury-vapor light, obliterating it in a rear...  
  
Anne look back, getting a glance.  
  
Then she screamed, fear replaced with utter terror, the glance giving her too, too much to see. The air exploded with the reports of gunfire, not directed at her, but the grunting, wheezing howl was unstopped, and the pounding clatter grew, even with her dash, even as she gained space. Directed, she realized, with a white haze of horror, at her.  
  
She left nothing left to think with. She just ran, droplets of blood continuing their intermittent pattern on the pitted asphalt.  
  
  
It could smell the blood. Delicious, delicious blood, leading its way to its source, still hot and fresh, dripping freely from the prey. Running, but wounded, and bound to fall before too long. It grunted as a bullet found a haunch, but ignored, feeling the sting of healing set in, the lead causing no problem.  
  
One of the other non-prey aimed again. It reached out with one arm and sent it sprawling in a blow that would have broken a neck had it actually been putting force into it. But it had its orders, and they had been given by one it dare not defy. It would take the prey first, then it would feed later. Not now.   
  
But where had it gone? Only faint scent, and a singing coldness to the air....   
It snarled, broken teeth exposed, nostrils flaring, sensing for the metal-sweet scent of lifeblood. There, but confused....it would need to hunt more thorougly now, but that only added to the pleasure. With a wail of exhiliration, it bunched its legs underneath it and continued, breaking through the power, searching for the scent.  
  
  
Anne ran onward, frantic, still hearing a clatter behind her, though perhaps it was only the slap of her own soles on the streetside.  
  
In the effort of the moment, she didn't feel the chill around her neck, or the greater glint of the bouncing silver medallions. 


	8. Outnumbered And Definitely Outclassed

"Do not fuck with me, gentlemen; I'll destroy you."  
--Vlad Taltos, _Yendi_  
  
  
"What the fuck is the *matter* with you assholes?" he spat, feeling his shin for any breaks, teeth bared at the others. "Didn't you get her like I said?""  
  
"Oh, fucking shit, Alfonse, oh *shit*...."  
  
"SHUT THE FUCK UP, ASSHOLE! Why didn't you get her?"  
  
A somewhat more coherent member managed.... "We tried. But....something.....some *thing*.....it came up and attacked Tyrell....knocked 'im out. It was fuckin' *huge*... It was like some horse with *arms*, man, all slimy..."  
  
"Quit shittin' me! You were just a chicken!"  
  
"I was NOT, man! We tried to stop it, but firin' at it didn't even slow it! So help me! Then it took off after the bitch. If we stayed it could of killed us all!"  
  
Alfonse spat, crooked teeth bared as he tried to wipe away the clotting blood from the parallel nail-rakes on his face, the gesture of someone who loved control and who was enraged by having it doubly thwarted. "Fuckin' chicken, I oughta--"  
  
"'Scuse me--there something of a problem?"   
  
The new voice drawled into his rant, breaking it off in mid-breath.   
  
The gathered gangbangers looked up, hands going to guns at the sight of the lean figure ambling towards their position, hair haloing in a silver shine under the few functioning streetlights. Behind his right shoulder the hilt and stylized bat-winged crossguard of a massive broadsword protruded, glinting dully as did the crimson leather of the coat underneath it. The posture was swaggeringly insouciant, but the eyes faintly seen gleaming under the ghostly bangs were anything but.  
  
"None of your fuckin' business, man--"  
  
"Man, you like the F word. What, don't get enough of it to satisfy you?" The stranger's mouth smirked. The stranger's eyes didn't. "Or, like, didn't you get far enough in school to learn any more vocab?"  
  
A gunshot report smacked through the nearby buildings. Alfonse grinned viciously, only to have it smeared away from his mouth as the newcomer swiftly sidestepped the bullet even as the report still echoed.  
  
"Man, and here I was trying to be friendly. No helping some people, I guess."  
  
"Fuck off!"  
  
"Yup, no creativity whatsoever." He drew up about ten feet away from the main body of the stunned group. "So. Did a girl come by here?" One elegant platinum eyebrow arched at the clotted blood on Alfonse's face. "Looked like. 'Parently, your dating habits need work too."  
  
"I don't have to tell you nothin', pretty boy! So why don't you just go and--"  
  
A second gun report broke the rant off into a scream of pain.  
  
The black-gloved hand twirled a silver .45 idly as the hand's owner surveyed it with detached interest, then shifting to Alfonse, who was whimpering and grasping his wounded leg, which now also sported blood on the inside of the knee.  
  
"Sheesh. Quit whining, I only grazed you. It was just a warning shot." The .45 then suddenly aimed rock steady at the knee full on, the voice gone utterly cold.  
  
"The next won't be."  
  
The gang shifted uncomfortably, feeling the disadvantage, then stopped dead as a second .45 was suddenly black in the impostor's left hand, aimed at the nearest members just as unshakably as the silver was at their leader.  
  
Now." The man's voice was arctic. "You *will* tell me what happened, and you *will* tell me which direction she went. Yesterday. Because if you *don't*, I'll start on knees and work my way from there. The same for the rest of you." The rose gold of a sodium vapor lamp reflected off the silver of the eyes, turning them cerise. "I have had a *fucking /bad/* day and I'm ready to share it around if any of you hold out on me or so much as *blink* ugly. /Do you hear me?/" The light from the lamp was suddenly blocked as he subtly shifted, but it did nothing to change the reddish shade of the shadowed eyes.  
  
"I.....okay, man." Another gang member let out a shaky breath. "We'll talk. We'll talk."  
  
"Wow." came the sarcastic drawl. "Someone with sense here. GOOD boy." Those eyes ratcheted on him. "Talk. Now." 


	9. Knight in Extremely Perturbed Armor

She couldn't remember how long she'd been running, now. It felt like forever, and the hot weakness in her legs and in her lungs was coppery and clamping. She hadn't realized she had bleeding for quite some time, until the drying blood had pulled on the fabric of her pant leg. Fortunately it had clotted, because she didn't know if she had time to stanch the shallow graze.  
  
Anne had shaken the Thing for some time, now, but still heard the occasional hunting howl. It was more than enough to make her stumble on, through a nightmare montage of storefronts, passersby and the occasional honking car nearly running her over as she kept to the light as much as she could. Things at least seemed less likely to attack her here. At least there were fewer broken streetlights, bums, and maniacs. But that was just window-dressing compared to the occasional howl she still heard out of the darkness. It drove her on, painfully, through a section of genteel 18th century houses, towards a distant stand of trees. Peace there....wholeness there...singing in the darkness, for a mind where nearly all rationality was stripped down by the onslaught of fear and panic. The lights of the storefronts beckoned, but there wasn't peace there, no healing or hope...  
  
She kept stumbling onward, away from the lights, for the trees, the mercury vapor of the streetlamps playing frostily over her and her dark ragged-cut hair. In the end, she sagged against a large hickory, gasping, closing her eyes as the breeze whispered a lullabye in the tree's leaves to her, silver still glimmering over her in a dewy shimmer, then slowly fading.  
  
She dozed, exhausted, unaware of the muted thunder approaching.  
  
She opened her eyes groggily at something, then they opened wide, a scream squealing its way out of her throat.   
  
Her body rolled out of the way for her, ignoring any impulses from her brain. This saved her, as a warped hand closed around where she'd been a half second before. For a sickening eternity of a few moments she couldn't get legs to respond, and instead ended up scrambling back on her ass, bruising and dirtying it as her brain was seared with an image, rearing against the distant glow of the city lights.  
  
Muscle glistened wetly, red-black in the darkness, slashed with pallid sinew along the body of the monster as it reached the top of its arc of rear. Its equine body poised; flipperlike, hooved forelegs tensing to cut down, black veins pulsing, flaming eye rolling above a fanged muzzle dribbling spittle. From the back a humanoid torso protruded, arms obscenely long, a huge head rolling on a neck that didn't support it, the entirety a maniac's nightmare of a centaur by way of Picasso.   
  
It made another howl from both throats that no human or horse could have produced but which had hideous echoes of both at once, the dragging hand reaching for her again.  
  
The hooves descended with a slash.  
  
They hit nothing but dirt, as Anne rolled in a tight ball, ignoring bruises and rocks, trying to get away mindlessly with the speed of the panicked. Heels dug in, jackknifing her legs out into a standing stagger, then she stumbled as a foot caught a root. She gagged as the thing's stench hit her; rotting fish and salt crossed with a garbage midden that grabbed at her gut with physical force. She couldn't help fighting the urge to vomit, and it was a nearly lethal pause.  
  
A giant, raw hand crunched not six inches from Anne into the hickory's bark, and adrenalin swept away nausea into a shriek of fear. She dodged away, and time slowed down suddenly into a stand-still, air and space turned into clear molasses as she saw the other hand sweep in towards her throat, the mercury vapor glistening on the naked muscle and tendon tensed to grasp....  
  
Anne screamed, rage and fear and desperation loosed in one primal noise, her mind narrowing down again to one drive...  
  
The white blaze of light branded itself onto her retinas, their blood vessels afterimaging in violet pain in her memory and counterpointed by another dual-throated shriek from the....Thing. Anne's throat was not grasped, and she dove and rolled, still reeling from a sudden loss of...something, but wanting to get away so badly she didn't ask what was going on. She turned to stumble and run again, not understanding the white fire that had burned into her eyes but had shed little true light or warmth, which had been enough to stun the monster after her. She was so tired....knew that it would be after her again, not sure if she cared anymore. Distantly, she peered over her shoulder at the hideous form, already gathering its massive haunches underneath itself to launch at her again.   
  
There was another shock of light, this one hot and bluish with a reek of ozone overlaying the stench of the Thing. Then a cooked stench and an electrical firestorm broke loose with a fresh scream from the monster. This time, it was a noise of pain.  
  
There was another shout....blessedly human, seeming to be male, and a figure rolled aside, popping up again with lightning crackling around it, coat flapping with the movement.  
  
"C'mon, try something your own size!" the voice barked. "Whassamatter, horsemeat, don't like stuff biting back? C'mon, asshole, tiiiime to plaaaaaaay!"  
  
The Thing snarled gutterally at the taunts, hooves slashing out. So did a monster broadsword from the other figure, electricity snarling around it. The light played violetly in the silver streaks of Anne's eyes, as she watched in distant shock, still trying to get her breath back.  
  
The Thing squealed again, as the man rolled under its rearing, slimy underbelly, driving up hard with the blade. The squeal turned into a shriek, as naked muscle and tendon were sliced, loosing a gout of black ichor that splattered into face and red leather and silver hair.  
  
"Jeeeezus!" the man spluttered again almost absently after getting out of range of hooves, wiping blood out of his eyes and weaving sparking blade in a defence pattern one-handedly with his free hand. "I've killed some weird shit before but this takes the damn cake." His booted feet braced again as the monster wheeled for another attack, spurting ichor from a nasty belly wound that had almost but not quite managed to disembowel.  
  
A wound that, as Anne watched, was already starting to seal. This was also not lost on her defender, who skipped back a few yards, trenchcoat flapping around his legs, sword still sizzling, more cautious.  
  
"This.....*couuuuuld* be a problem," Dante muttered to himself.  
  
"....Dante?" Anne said softly, disbelief at the appearance of the unlikely Galahad giving way under having gotten her breath back.  
  
Dante didn't turn to face her, eyes still on the monster, putting himself between it and the exhausted, cowering woman. "You're good. Knew you had some admirers, babe, but this one's kind of pushing it. Must be your perfume."  
  
Anne tried to straighten herself. "No, my blazing stupidity for God's SAKE Dante what *are* you doing get away from it *now*!"  
  
Dante feinted a hoof, which darted back as he jabbed. "What, you want I let you have Ugly here date you? I mean, this is what do you call--RAGH!--it, Beauty and the Beast? Come on, you can do better than THAT!" The last word was punctuated by a snarling, driving jab at the creature's equine neck, landing it home and loosing another gout of blood.  
  
"Are you MAD?" Anne shrieked, her fear for herself washed out by shock and fear for Dante.   
  
"FUCKING NUTS!" Dante roared back, then giving a yell of pain as a hoof scored his right thigh just below thigh holster, tearing leather. "Shit! THAT WAS A THREE HUNDRED DOLLAR PAIR OF PANTS! DIE, YOU FLOCKER!"  
  
"Oh, hell," Anne moaned, watching Dante engage the Thing again in a crazed ballet of bloodshed. By this point, she wasn't sure what was freaking her more; the Thing, the fact it was Dante fighting it, the fact he was doing it with a gigantic sword, the fact it was a gigantic sword that had arcs of electricity dancing around it from tip to stylized dragonhead hilt, or the fact Dante was wielding it with a grace and speed that betrayed he was no novice to it. Occasionally one-handedly. Anne was no good hand with weaponry, but she was fairly sure in the portion of her mind not gibbering in fear that a broadsword that looked that heavy would be an effort for anyone to heft two-handedly, let alone with one.  
  
Private investigator. Riiiiight....  
  
Dante muttered to himself again as he saw fresh wounds on the monster mend even as he moved in again with Alastor, with no apparent cumulative effect other than making the creature madder. For his own part, the extended run here and the blows the Thing was scoring on him were making themselves felt, even with his more than human metabolism. He couldn't help it with the power brimming over in him; he flared violet as diabolic energy coursed through him, the exhaustion and cuts fading a bit. He then rolled away from downcutting hooves again, light whirling off metal as the two .45s twirled into gloved hands.  
  
"Boys, don't fail me now," he muttered, and opened fire.  
Bullets ripped from the twin barrels, launching into pseudo-equine and pseudo-human chest with a roar of recoil and muzzle flares. For several seconds the area was a hellish strobe of flying blood, flares, and electricity.  
  
Then there was silence, and blinding darkness.  
  
Dante blew a puff of smoke away from one weapon, before reholdering it. "There, that oughta do it. C'mon, Annie, we need to get Trish on the horn--"  
There was a choking growl, and a single flaming eye popped open from the ground.  
  
Dante....slowly....stepped...back, his ice-color eyes widening in the gloom, reflecting the streetlights. Not fear, no, but caution. Caution which only deepened when he saw the Thing stagger again to its feet, lead ejecting from its body, and a general attitude that even through its general hideousness and prior bad mood conveyed a severe anger.  
  
Dante looked at the Thing, machismo warring with pragmatism and at a loss on what to do next. He then looked at the frightened, exhausted, obviously wounded Anne, then at the creature again, who was advancing stiff-legged towards both of them, saliva hitting the ground and its stench even worse if that were possible.  
  
"Well, shit," Dante said.  
  
Then Anne found herself grabbed up by one scarred wrist and yanked after Dante, who was running like hell.  
  
  
"NO, YOU STUPID BASTARD, I DO *NOT* WANT TO SWITCH MY LONG DISTANCE PLAN! I NEED TO HOLD OPEN THE LINE, GOODBYE!"  
  
Trish slammed down the receiver, nearly cracking it with the force she used, before sitting back and glaring at it viciously with sapphirine eyes, on the way to maiming yet another defenseless pencil.  
  
"Dante," she said between gritted teeth, "the next time you 'forget' to bring your cellphone with you on a mission, I'm going to take it and shove it up your--dammit!"   
  
The pencil snapped in her hands, so she firmly sat back and glowered at the map on the table some more.  
  
"I really hate my life sometimes," she growled. 


	10. Aerial Transportation of Women

Anne staggered, the coppery taste in her mouth worse, desperately trying to drag in a breath even as Dante continued to mercilessly drag her forth by the arm. Then the fire in her lungs was almost completely drowned out in a fresh wave of fear as the eldritch howl behind them let them both know the Thing wasn't yet giving up. Dante swore, then swore again as the murky moonlight illuminated the stream immediately in front of them. It was more than twenty feet wide....likely too deep to wade. For them, but probably not for the Thing. Swimming would slow them down, probably fatally. Anne whimpered in despair.   
  
Dante paused for maybe half a second. Then Anne managed a pained squeal of surprise through her tortured larynx as she was suddenly hauled up in mid-run underneath one leather-clad arm, Dante's approach not pausing an iota. She started to struggle.  
"*Trust me*, dammit," he hissed, even as the water rushed up to fill their foreground vision.  
  
And then there was a huge lurch, as in one move, leg muscles tensed and uncoiled, and gravity lost its hold. Through her streaming eyes, as if in slow motion, Anne saw the dark waters of Rock Creek suddenly below them, almost leisurely passing by....  
The shock hit them and so did the splash of water, as it slapped around boots momentarily as Dante powered up the opposite bank, breathing hard. Even with his endurance, the extended chase was taking its toll.  
  
But nobody could have cleared that width of water, not like that.... Anne was still in shock. She replayed it in her mind again, not finding even any Olympian athlete able to perform that feat. Not with an adult human being under their arm.... Dante set her down again and she struggled to breathe, staggering again for the road with her companion.  
  
"Hope that...bought enough time," Dante wheezed. There was a frustrated howl behind them, and they kept up with a pained jog. In the streetlights coming up, Dante most certainly had seen better days, muddy, wet, exhausted, and with fetid black blood over a good half of his leathers. Of course, Anne wasn't looking so good herself.  
  
"Payphone....my damn kingdom for a fucking payphone. God, I hope Trish is still there." Anne couldn't find the wind to respond and just nodded, listening for any howls or approaching thuds of hooves. The noises she could make out, though, were more and more distant as they got further away on their clamber up the slope.  
  
"Here's hoping we can find something in Woodley Park. Damn, don't know where. Don't get out here often," Dante panted, guiding them for the streetlights. Anne could see the point, once her eyes adjusted to the brightness. This was a considerably tonier area than DNC's locale. Dante continued, slowly getting his wind back, "*Before* Skinless Boy back there gets to us." Anne winced and tried to get up to a mechanical jog. Dante reached back and gave Alastor a premptory pat to make sure it was still there.   
  
As fate would have it, a CVS Pharmacy and payphone were shortly to be had. Anne paced around before collapsing on the curb, too tired to move, while Dante shoved in quarters.  
  
"Hey...Trish? Found her. Yeah, yeah, I'm here. Found company too. Get out here soon's you can, we have a demon on our trail. Cheeze, don't start, woman, do it later. Connecticut and Calvert. What? No. No. Yes, get the plastic on the back seat, it bled on me and it stinks. No, she's okay. Damn fool stupid thing for her to do. Yeah, right. See you in ten." He hung up. Anne just spent the intervening time staring at the street. Dante kept up his pacing, throwing her the occasional look. He himself looked tired, bloody, and pissed off. Anne couldn't blame him.  
  
'Sorry' seemed a lame thing to say in this situation, so the uncomfortable silence stretched for a few minutes.  
  
"I have to ask. *What* made you flip out?"  
  
She shivered. "I don't know. I just....snapped. I'm s...." She trailed off.  
  
Dante sighed. "Annie?"  
  
"...Yeah?"  
  
"Word to the wise. That's a *bad* section of town to be out in after dark, even before. This's DC. That's even discounting skinless horse things runnin' around. I can hack it as I pack heat and heavy metal, and anybody with brains and a memory knows not to screw with me. Trish can take care of herself. But you were unarmed and defenseless." Dante paused a second. "I think."  
  
"...Yeah. I think." She remembered the blaze of coldfire as the Thing was nearly on her. "Why'd you go after me?"  
  
Dante made a snort of irritation and didn't respond. Even in the bad lighting, he too looked tired unto death.  
  
There was some more silence.  
  
Very softly: "Would it honestly freaking *kill* you to realize we only wanted to help?"  
This time was Anne's turn not to respond. She stared out at the traffic a minute or so.  
  
She whispered. "...I don't think I'm used to it."  
  
"That's all. No strings attached. 'Xcept maybe for hurting the people responsible. We kind of know what it's like to be in the situation you're in. Hate to say it, babe, but if you thought you were going to be shut of us before, ain't gonna happen now. Not with Skinless after you."  
  
"Oh, fun." She looked up and winced as headlights bored their merry way into her eyes. A familiar hideous rattletrap of a Dodge Ram went to idle mode on the streetside.  
  
"Wow, Dante, you look beautiful, "Trish's voice commented sourly from The Beast.  
  
"Love ya too." Dante's hand gently tugged Anne up by the arm. She followed, limping, leg cramps already setting in. "Let's beat it for home. I'm wiped."  
  
  
  
By the following morning, Dante's concerns on Anne's running again were pretty much moot, as she had gotten a vicious cold. 


	11. Caught In Flagrante

/Lovely,/ Dante muttered to himself, digging through a carton of Chinese for a last few stray bean sprouts. He scooped them up with the spoon and munched on them, downing it all with a beer. /Juuuust friggin' lovely./ He looked down and contemplated the gutted innards of the takeout box for a few moments, his feet and legs painfully propped up on his desk with the carton in his lap. It was better than looking at Trish. She kept walking by his desk with rigid back, thunderous expression and eyes turned away in a very familiar manner that said out loud she was Still Not Talking To Him.   
  
While she was busy between calls with a fervently renewed attempt to research the nature of the creature that had attacked he and Anne, she was still apparently not forgiving him for forgetting to keep in managable contact with her. She let him know about that last night, even before he'd gotten away to shower the blood off himself.  
  
Oh *boy* had she let him know about it.  
  
She'd been furious. Enough that she did the one thing Dante hated the most coming from her.  
  
She'd used the Mom Voice.  
  
Dante *hated* it when she used the Mom Voice. It was bad enough she resembled his late mother, but when she used *that* tone of voice it bypassed all his higher reasoning functions and hit him right in the center of the portion of his brain that remembered viscerally being six years old and being found having broken the cookie jar after Vergil had dared him to get into it. It was *hell* on your machismo when you started flinching when your partner started shouting at you in a certain way, and Trish knew it.  
  
He spoke up, trying to keep the pleading out of his voice. "Can we let it go already? OW!" A pencil had flown at him and bounced off his forehead. Point-first. Apparently she was still Not Talking To Him.   
  
Dante rubbed the mark on his forehead, wincing and looking up at one of his vast collection of impaled demon heads on the walls of the office.  
"Ever had one of those days?" he muttered to the nearest one. "Oh, yeah, you did. I happened. Never mind."  
  
A very loud, very miserable sneeze echoed faintly from upstairs, causing Dante's sensitive ears to prick in interest. Apparently Anne's case of the sniffles was coming along...well...'nicely' was probably not the right term to use in this case. 'Notably' was probably better.   
  
Trish had been kind enough to hit the nearest CVS for a large quantity of Kleenexes, zinc lozenges, and other related supplies when it became obvious the stresses of the previous day had taken their toll on Anne's immune system. (And a full package of pencils for target practice, in very pointed, Not Talking To You fashion.) Anne was already well through the first box of tissues and Dante, judging from how much the amnesiac upstairs was *not* enjoying the experience, was desperately hoping that hybrid vigor would come through again and keep him from getting the curse. His hearing was picking up enough sneezing, snuffling, whimpering, moaning and groaning to make the upper floor sound like a viral torture cell. And, of course, until they all felt a little bit safer about just *what* it was that tried to grab her last night and how to fight it, she was under semi-house arrest in Dante's apartment. Sleeping on his couch, and using his bathroom. Again.  
  
"Looooovely," he muttered under his breath again.  
  
Trish suddenly made a startled little 'hmm' voice, staring intently at the screen of her Powerbook and dropping most of the frigid Not Talking To You attitude. Dante made notice of this and sat up, pale aquamarine irises focusing on Trish and the fact from the look of it she was suddenly paging down the screen a lot and reading, her blue eyes flickering rapidly as she did so.  
  
"Okay, Trish. If you're still pissed at me, drop it, because if you have a lead I need to know it too."  
  
Trish frowned absently, still reading, but nodding, a more scholarly demeanor taking over. It was creepily reminiscent, from what memories Dante had of his mother doing the same with books. "I think I found a description and reference of the thing that you went up against last night, Dante."  
  
Dante sat up further in interest, feet sliding off the table and onto the floor. "Yeah? You have any idea what kind of demon it was? 'Cos I've never fought anything like that before and you say you haven't seen one before either life. Nobodies are almost as ugly though."  
  
"Yah." Pause. "Idiot."  
  
"I said I was *sorry* okay, dammit!"  
  
Trish looked up at him, eyes blazing. "Yeah, but sorry wouldn't have meant *crap* if your being all macho and oh no, I don't need a cellphone had gotten Anne---" She trailed off, took a couple deep breaths, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Later, later, already screamed at you for that. And yes, Dante, I've got a match, finally. It took some doing, though."  
  
Dante walked over. Carefully. Hiding any wince he made at any strikes she'd scored on him. "Yeah? So what kind of demon is it?"  
  
"That's the thing, Dante."  
  
"What thing?"  
  
"It's....not."  
  
"Not.......what?"  
  
"Not a demon."  
  
"Okay. Back up. That thing, stink, skinlessness, slime, blood, and all, *wasn't*? What in the name of Hell *was* it then, Trish?"  
  
"A faerie."  
  
Dante paused.  
  
"Uh, hold on, hold on, *back* *up* here. A *faerie*?"  
  
"That's what the webpage said, yeah."  
  
Dante blinked. Several times. "You mean Barnum and Bailey's annotation to /Gray's Anatomy/ is a *faerie*?"  
  
"That's what I SAID, yes!" Trish snapped, still paging.  
  
Dante blinked some more, then smacked himself upside the head. "Shit. For a moment I had a vision of trying to link Skinless with Tinkerbell and my brain barfed. That's just *wrong*."  
  
Trish blinked a lot, trying to resolve things.  
  
After a moment she commented distantly. "Faeries apparently exist. Now, from looks of things, faeries aren't anything like the flitty fluttery Victorian and Disney crap, but that really hurt my mind, Dante. Now I'm thinking of the....*thing* with little fluttery insect wings.....and.....*ow*."  
  
"Heh. Payback for the macarena thing." Dante stretched, popped vertebrae back into place, then--cautiously--leaned over Trish's desk to look at the screen. "Okay. What *did* you find?"  
  
Trish pulled up the window so he could see. "This is just for starters, but it's a launching point."  
  
Dante read.  
  
"...Nuckalavee the Skinless."  
  
Trish nodded. "It's an evil Scottish water faerie. Or I should probably say, of the sea. The description matches just about exactly what you and Anne saw last night. Identified with plagues and failing crops." Dante nodded. Trish continued. "It apparently hates fresh running water, so if it's chasing you you just need to cross over say, a creek or stream to escape it."  
  
Dante paused, then slowly facepalmed, leather glove smacking against forehead.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I...didn't say what Anne and I did last night."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Jumped over Rock Creek carrying her. Looks like it was the best thing to do, and I didn't even know it."  
  
Trish paused, looking at him, chin in palm of hand. She knew how wide the creek in question was. "Let me guess. Aside from all *this*, she's starting to get suspicious of what we *really* do for a living."  
  
"Aaaamong other things. I bet me taking Alastor to that thing didn't exactly help."  
  
"Gosh. Who Would Have Thought." Trish was marvelous on the sarcasm.  
  
"What the hell am I supposed to do, Trish? Really? Tell her, 'hi, my dad was one of the spawn of the pit of Hell, but he got better and I don't bite, really'? I mean, maybe *three* human-type people on the planet know who and what I really am and you're one of them."  
  
Trish's voice was dry. "Looks like you're going to have to expand to four before long if she keeps around here, bonehead. Which we don't have much of an option about unless we *want* the Nuckalavee to get her."  
  
Dante muttered something obscene about Alastor, special effects, amnesiac women having breakdowns, and overachieving under duress. It was colorful, complicated, and a lot more detailed than Trish thought possible, especially given Dante being Dante and being more used to expressing things by hacking them up into small bits.   
  
"The thing is, why does it want her in the first place?" Trish muttered absently after parsing Dante's expanded vocabulary. "And what in the name of the Underworld is a *Scottish* faerie of any sort doing in America and a good half-hour drive at least away from any salt water? It's not like they get first-class tickets from Virgin Airways anyway. Unless there's interesting provisions post September 11th for parahumans that I didn't know of."  
  
Dante shook his head. "Damned if I know, babe. If there's anything for bringing weapons on board, I *really* want to hear about it."  
  
Trish glanced over at the massive blade hung over Alastor, which was covering the more ahem *interesting* attributes of Dante's treasured girlie poster. "Maybe museum exhibits?"  
  
"Can ya just *imagine* the freight on the Sparda?"  
  
"Ugh."  
  
The air exploded in a sudden, percussive, and incredible barrage of sneezing. Once Dante had popped up from his roll on the floor with Ebony and Ivory both in his hands, and Trish had finished her startled spin, both realized that it hadn't emitted from upstairs.  
  
In fact, it was from behind the door that led to the upstairs. The silence now emitting from there was entirely too innocent for its own good. And, for Dante, punctuated by an occasional snuffle.  
  
After a second of standoff, it opened.  
  
Anne looked like she'd seen better days. Her dark hair was a mangled tangle, her eyes were bright red and squinting from the light, and her nose was currently of a shade that was an almost exact Pantone match for Dante's pants and vest. This was disregarding the pained shuffle, attitude of general misery, and rapidly shrinking box of tissues. With them, the general aura of looking like she'd been dragged through a hedge dramatically increased.  
  
Dante realized absently that Anne had never *been* in the office aside from her first nearly fatal entrance with Trish and had taken the outside stairs to go downstairs or upstairs just before the sneezer actually entered the room. Judging from the widening of cold-reddened eyes, this was apparently a good supposition to make.  
  
While Trish and Dante were maintaining a sort of "oops, caught in the act" posture, Anne moved further in. Surly squinty eyes swept across the collection of sword-impaled demon heads; dusty drum set; desks; pool table carrying empty pizza boxes, takeout carton corpses, and dossiers; runecircle on the floor; and laptop and printer; finally coming to rest on both the Sparda and Alastor, the latter still providing bikini coverage for the bosom of Dante's Playboy centerfold.  
  
For some odd reason Dante now felt a lot like some guy naked and sweaty on top of some girl in the bedroom, looking up at his wife who just walked in and starting in on the 'Look, I can explain' routine. In a weird metaphysical way, it *felt* similar.  
  
Red-eyed and squinted or not, Dante noted that those eyes were getting....awfully gimlet.  
  
They came to rest on Trish and himself. Somehow, it didn't help being the focus for the regard. Especially since holding two .45 handguns wasn't helping him avoid thinking about the whole cheating husband being caught in flagrante delicito parallels.   
  
"Somebubby 'xplain. Lige now. Private investiggdur my azz." Anne said this tersely, then punctuated it with a 7.8 Richter sneeze.  
  
Dante looked at Trish.  
Trish looked at Dante.  
Dante looked at Anne.  
  
"Eheh. Uh, oopsie?" he said feebly.  
  
"My azz." she snapped, when recovering from her latest paroxym. Or tried to. It came out too phlegmily to be a good snap.  
  
Trish sighed, then elbowed Dante. Dante yelped, then straightened and carefully reholstered his guns. He then sighed, running a hand through his bangs and causing them to stick out in a white electroshock. All this time trying to ignore the hard, watery stare of the waifish young woman near the doorway.  
  
"Look, I can explain..." 


	12. Some Explanations Come Due

Anne sat on the couch, looking at the two. Well, rather squinting. It was the thought that counted. She blew her nose again, managing to clear nasal passages enough to speak a bit more coherently and clearly.  
  
"So....you're like the Ghostbusters, only with more leather and fewer proton packs?"  
  
Trish nodded. "That's....about right, actually. Only we do demons instead of ghosts."  
  
Anne pondered this, fairly evidently torn between denial and acknowledgement. She noted absently, "And not as much Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray."  
  
Dante snorted, getting a watery blowtorch glare from her. "Shaddab," Anne snapped. "I *lige* Agkroyd and Murray."  
  
Trish looked up towards the heavens pleadingly a second. "The point being; demons exist. They're not just tabloid fodder. They do. Most people never meet one in their lives, which is good for them. But they do exist, and if it wasn't for people like us, life would be a lot nastier for the very people that like living in denial of the fact."  
  
Anne blew her nose again. "So Dante here is partially right, you guys investigate, it's just ghoulies and ghosties and leggety beasties."  
  
"That tend to rip your head off and eat the brains, yes."  
  
"Fun. Reminds me of the cafeteria at university. What I remember of it. The Goths *were* making Tekeli-li jokes about the broccoli." Another nose-blow. "You kills them with *swords*?"  
  
"Nah," Dante commented absently. "Goths you just smack with a newspaper, they die easy." Trish swatted him. "Er, I mean, ow, dammit, Trish, stop that."  
  
Trish smiled sweetly. "Doctors have their extra-cold stethoscopes, demon hunters their swords. It's an accessory thing."  
  
"Big-ass swords that do enough special effects to make you look like an escapee from /Highlander/?" Anne asked coolly, eyes directed at Dante. Dante scowled.  
  
"Would ya rather I held back and risk Ugly having gotten his slimy hands around your neck last night?" he asked flatly. Anne's look of surly self-righteous indignation deflated in a wretched flush, before she rallied.  
  
"This concerns me too, Dante. I didn't know half of this, to begin with. Or why you two were so interested in the first place. If I'd known...." Anne's voice trailed off, her eyes empty and haunted.... "...Well.....at least I wouldn't....wouldn't have thought it was just me and I was going slowly mad. Maybe I am. I....just was afraid I'd do it alone."  
  
Dante smirked, though it didn't reach the hair-veiled eyes. "Hey, join the insanity, it's fun here." His voice went more serious. "If you're going crazy, it's not that way, Annie. Somethin' else is percolating."  
  
"Then how *am* I? I just want to know *something* definite and real, I don't know why I'm here or what's for sure or what happened to me or what *past* I should be having..." She took in breath through her mouth, blowing her nose again. "I just....stop holding out on me. So I *know* what's going on. I'm tired of being bounced around by things I don't even understand."  
  
Dante leaned back on his own chair, pondering. "So. Whaddaya want to know?"  
  
Anne paused. She hadn't really thought about this bit.  
  
She then let out a breath.  
  
She took it in again.  
  
"Why, on God's green earth," she commented, "do you have such a hideous decoration scheme?"  
  
Dante smacked his face into his palm.  
  
Anne wandered over to Alastor, in its place of poster-girl-boob-covering honor, pondering the massive blade, smirking and blowing her nose in the meantime. "Or, for that matter, swords that do the Highlander SFX in the first place..." She pondered it, her hand reaching out to the hilt. Almost expectantly, violet electricity started sparking around it, strengthening as her hand neared the hilt, her eyes fascinated--  
  
"*Don't touch it!*" Dante barked, seeing her. Trish startled, rising from her seat and watching, her eyes wide with fear, having also seen. "That thing is *not* safe for you to--" He trailed off, silver eyes widening as he saw she was suddenly not listening, staring stock still, her eyes' irises suddenly cold argent.  
  
Suddenly she stiffened and jerked, her back arching, head snapping back, hand clawing for her breast.  
  
"...the fuck?" he trailed off lamely, Trish ignoring him and dashing over to the transfixed woman. "What's going on?"  
  
"Crap, Dante, I think she's having another--" Trish reached her, reaching out for her shoulder.  
  
Anne's rigid position unlocked, so rapidly that she buckled and would have landed butt-first on the floor if Trish hadn't rapidly caught her as she went. Her eyes, as they stared at the Thunder Sword, were again dark, and wide with shock. The tableau held for a second.  
  
Then her eyes turned and fixed on the half-risen Dante, and they were wide in fear, and shock...and wonder.  
  
"That thing..... It went clean through you." One delicate, nail-bitten hand went up, to cradle her sternum, reflexively.  
  
"It....ran through your heart." She was shivering. So was Dante, now feeling a lot of little cold feet do a cha-cha up his spine at her expression.  
  
"God almighty....you rose up through that hilt, it gouged a hole in your chest....and you *survived*." Her tremble stepped up a notch. "I felt it. The pain.... I was you....it was the same clothes, same everything..... Dante, /what the hell are you/?"  
  
Trish watched this silently, then gave the woman a squeeze around the waist where she held her. "Okay, Dante, we're going to have to go for the Advanced, for Experts Only explanation."  
  
Dante smacked his face with hand again.   
  
"Aw, shit. I *hate* the Advanced Explanation."  
  
Anne blinked, emotions on a razor edge--then started giggling hysterically. And sneezing. This caused a bit of a mess until she got it all sorted out.  
  
Trish blinked. "Well. Ew."  
  
"Sorry!" Anne cleaned off her own face with another kleenex.   
  
"Um, this wouldn't have anything to do with the whole spawn of the pit of the hell I didn't overhear, really, honestly, would this face lie bit?" she asked diffidently. "And the whole you playing Superman thing last night. And well..."  
  
"The fact he can't cook worth a damn and lives on cold takeout?" Trish interjected, rolling her eyes.  
  
"Oh, *hugs* and *kisses* to you *too*! Bitch." Trish batted her eyes at Dante sweetly. This prompted another snotty sneeze-wracked paroxym of giggles from Anne.  
  
Dante snorted, wandering over and helping Trish with aiding Anne back to the couch. "Okay. Advanced Stupid Explanation Time. So. Babe, you prone to...okay, you already done the hysteria bit. Uh. Eh, fuck it, Explaining. Uh. Well. Uh. How to put this."  
  
"I can do it!" Trish said brightly. "Anne, Dante is--"  
  
"Shaddap, Trish. Okay--"  
  
"--Flaming gay?" Anne offered.  
  
"NO!"  
  
"--Republican?"  
  
"FUCK no!"  
  
"--A terrorist?"  
  
"Noooooo."  
  
"Tony Blair's secret identity?"  
  
"Oh, for Christ's sake. Trish, stop laughing and get off the floor."  
  
Anne said, "I was just getting started."  
  
Dante stared at her. "Who are you, and what drugs have *you* been on recently?"  
  
Anne sneezed again. "I'd tell you, but I don't think the DayQuil's kicked in yet."  
  
Trish absently twitched legs, from where she was lying on the floor and shaking, holding her sides.  
  
"Oh, flock it." Dante sighed. "Anne, my father was a demon, I'm half-demon, I got some nifty extras out of it, we kill demons for a living, Trish used to be on the wrong side of the fence but got better, so did my dad, please don't get the ofuda or the exorcist. Thank you, game over, good *night*."  
  
There was some silence after this. Dante silently and truth be told a little tensely watched Anne's sight pan from him to Trish, trying to absorb this, her mercurial mood shifting back to cold sobriety again as she blinked several infinite times.  
  
"So...it wasn't just a turn of speech, was it."  
  
Dante shook his head. Trish sat up, likewise watching Anne with some worry.  
  
Anne sighed, and tapped the side of her head, continuing to sniffle. "I...can seem to intellectually understand this. It sounds like the plot of a bad movie, but I hear what you're saying," She paused. "But I've got visions that hit me, a monster attacked me last night, and I have had Dante leap dozens of feet carrying me over a creek." She paused. "Oh, and for variety, the vision of the monster sword attacking Dante and running him through. Which he survived. So I suppose you aren't B.S.ing me and I'm in smile and nod territory. Plus, you both saved my life." Another pause. "Just...give me a bit to let this sink in."  
  
Dante plopped gracelessly down on the couch next to her, hands between his knees. He was oddly relieved to see she wasn't shrinking away from him. Yet. Aisha and Tony had taken a bit to adjust. "Sure. Not gonna do anything against me or Trish, are ya?"  
  
"No. Why?"  
  
"Because holy water gives me a frickin' rash."  
  
Anne ponders, grinned a bit, and bobbed her head in amusement.  
  
Trish finally got up on the other side of Anne on the couch, still giggling soundlessly. Dante rolled his eyes, sobered and then sat back, gathering his thoughts.  
  
"Okay, class. This is what I've seen goin' on with this so far..." 


	13. Funny, He Doesn't SEEM Like a Freak....T...

Anne sort of vaguely listened, her head being stuffed up and in the backwash of rapid shocks and swings, trying to absorb the information that had been just dropped on her.  
  
Dante didn't seem....well, he seemed *human*. There was nothing strange to him at first glance, other than that early-white hair and those pale ambiguously colored eyes. He sat, breathed, ate, smoked, staggered around half-asleep, and did other various activities that were typically human. There wasn't any preternatural aura, he didn't sacrifice children by the dark of the moon, wasn't a Satanist as far as she could tell, and hadn't anything more bizarre going on with his sex life than an overabundance of girlie posters and what he used to cover their chests with. Nor had he, as far as she knew, done anything lurid to her during any of the time she had been at his place. He was.....weirdly normal. (Aside from the regrettable taste in office decor and clothing.) It spooked her.  
  
Trish.... She flicked eyes over to Trish. She didn't even *want* to contemplate anything about Trish yet. She had enough on her plate as was with the phantom pain of several feet of steel rammed through her chest still vivid in her memory.   
  
God, those visions were getting to be bastards.  
  
"GOoooOOOOOOD *MORNING*, Annie! Are you there?" Dante waved a hand in front of her face.  
  
"Gah! The hell?" She forced her breathing back down. Then sneezed again. Dammit.  
  
Dante smirked. "Sorry."  
  
"Like hell you are."  
  
"Mouthy. Anyway, class. Where were we?"  
  
Anne rewound the conversation. "You're saying that the thing that was after me wasn't a demon, but a faerie?"  
  
Trish nodded absently, not seeming to notice Anne's rather more thorough look in her direction. "According to what I've found, yes. A Scottish faerie called the Nuckalavee. Nasty thing."  
  
Dante grunted, leaning back. "I don't know a whole lot about faeries, either. Yippee."  
  
Anne twitched, random half-ghosts of memory flickering and tugging at her mind. "....I think I do. Or did. I think I'm Welsh. I think...." She put her face into her hands, saying very softly... "...dammit."  
  
Dante frowned, putting a quick hand on her shoulder. More softly and compassionately than his usual demeanor: "Don't push it, Annie. I can tell it's not easy."  
  
Anne nodded, face still in hands. "I hate this," she whispered. "Not...knowing what's real and what's not."  
  
There was an uncomfortable silence. "Faeries....I...know most of them weren't supposed to like cold iron," Trish supplied haltingly.   
  
Dante glanced over. "Yeah? Well, the damn thing kept regenerating even after I sliced it with Alastor and shot the shit out of it. And Alastor's steel on steroids."  
  
Trish paused. "Most. Maybe not all. I think maybe that thing's weak point is fresh water?"  
  
"It'd be safe to say, babe. At least it's something to work with."  
  
Anne put her face up again. "I....I'm...pretty sure I'm Welsh. Originally. Being a Celt and all....there's a lot of lore on them back home....I remember bits and pieces....and in university, I remember...." She half-shrugged, snuffling again.  
  
Trish smiled a very little bit. "We'll take what we can get. Which begs the question...uh...how are we going to keep the Nuckalavee from trying for Anne again?"  
  
Dante leaned back, looking thoughtful. "I have some ideas. Well, other than going out only during rainy days and so on." He cracked his knuckles, black-leather fingers wrapping around each other. "And I have some things I can try." Crack, crack. "And if those don't work, I'm sending the sumbitch all the way back to Scotland if I have to." Crack. "Vortex is your happy friend."  
  
"...uh.....right...." Anne trailed off.  
  
Dante pondered. "Speaking of things I can try.....Trish? Hold down the fort, babe." Pause. "Yeah, I know, you're still pissed at me, but this isn't for me. I'll be back in a few hours."  
  
Trish arched a golden eyebrow. "What're you thinking?"  
  
Dante got up from his seat and started to shove the drum set aside. A trapdoor was revealed. "Let's just say I'm going to be in the basement for a while."  
  
"Wha...oh, right. *That*. Be seeing you when I see you."  
  
Dante flipped the door up. "Right." He dived inside in one graceful motion, the trapdoor closing behind him with a thunk.  
  
Anne looked at Trish.  
  
"Er, well, what is he--"  
  
Dante bounced up out from the trapdoor again with a slam. "Oops, forgot something." With no preamble, a hypodermic needle was aimed at Anne's arm and went in.  
  
"OW! FUCK! The *fuck*?"   
  
Dante brandished a now full vial of blood. "Sorry about that, got everything now. Take two." He dived back down the trapdoor again.  
  
Anne winced and rubbed her wounded right arm. "The *hell* was *that* about?" Trish sighed and got a bandaid.  
  
"He's got an idea again. I think he's having fun, so leave him alone."  
  
Anne glowered. "I hope he gets my cold." 


	14. Chumbawumba Mad Demon Hoodoo, UNGH!

/Muuuch better,/ Dante thought, gloved hand closing around a vial of blood still warm from Anne's body. He blinked a couple of moments, readjusting vision to the changed light levels.  
  
It was cool and musty down here, but dry enough. The basement ladder stretched back upstairs behind him, with a very small room in front of him with random crates of ammo, and some stored particularly choice tabloids. (Dante took a particular perverse sense of pride in knowing when _Men in Black_ had actually brought up the idea of tabloids as paranormal information resources, he'd been already using them as such for a couple years.) There was also a doorway, which he made appropriate use of, the leather of his coat and pants making muffled rustle and squeak noises as he passed through, shutting door.  
  
Beyond was dark. He fixed this with a quick switch, which flared on the bulb of a gooseneck desk lamp. And off the spines of leather-bound volumes, stretching into the musty dimness.  
  
This was the real prize of his efforts.  
  
Ten years had been spent getting it, with blood, sweat, and tears, sometimes literally in a few cases. While Trish put her faith in her memories of her time in Mundus's service and what leads she could dig up online, this was the heart, soul, and backbone of Dante's own knowledge of his trade. He'd started it when he first achieved his majority, and kept it up all this time and added to it with payment for various jobs, sometimes as plunder from them, or exchange with the sparse network of other devil hunters around the country. There was one fairly slender, but extremely valued notebook, filled with notes he'd managed to transcribe from memories of Mallet Island, and what he'd remembered from gleaning from the now-destroyed libraries there in between marionettes and worse trying to dice him.  
  
Dante glanced at it, remembering bits of those readings. / Those Castellans were. Fucked. Up./ Anybody that made a practice of worshipping Mundus needed a head from ass extraction emergency surgery.   
  
He dug past, finally going 'aha' as he managed to excavate the tomes he needed. After shuffling through them, confirming that they were what he wanted, he plopped down at the ancient desk with its lamp, leaning back in what had been one of his old swivel chairs and was now more auditioning for being put out of its misery. He dug through the drawers, excavating a pair of reading glasses. After putting them on, which produced an appearance the cognitive dissonance of which would have made most of his regular acquaintances run off screaming and Trish to blink at him in horribly worried puzzlement, he leaned back and started to read.  
  
He kept reading for at least a couple of hours, gloved fingers tapping intermittently as he thought.   
  
Once or twice, he shuffled between volumes to corrobate, crossreference, and double-check things.  
  
At long last, he leaned back, looking thoughtful, then stood up and stretched, popping abused vertebrae back into place. He thought he had what he needed.  
  
That thing may have been a faerie, but certainly some adaptation and changing values would produce something that would work. And Dante himself was hardly without power to spare.  
  
If nothing else, half-demonic blood added a lot of oomph.  
  
Which was good, because he *sucked* when it came to fine control. Most other fully human devil hunters, weaker and slower though they were, had magus abilities to back up any feats of arms. On top of that, their magery was far more detailed than he himself ever could manage in the pinch of battle. Damn demon instincts played hell with Dante's mental composure when they kicked him into full Slaughter Mode. He hadn't had any luck harnessing his demonic half for fully voluntary paranormal things until Alastor and Ifrit gave him crutches.  
  
Thank whoever this wasn't in the heat of battle.  
  
Dante pondered this as he carefully drew the glyphs with a piece of chalk, keeping his hand steady. He checked the positioning of the objects within; one now cooled bottle of Anne's blood, a folded paper of blackened, evil-smelling flakes, a small vial of clear water, and between them, a cold-forged iron bullet etched with yet more glyphs.  
  
Dante fought a small bit of smugness at having contacts at the Washington Cathedral that allowed him a steady supply of holy water. Then, upon realizing he didn't have any reason to *not* be smug, got obscenely so. Maybe it wouldn't work on faeries, or at least the type he was targeting, but hell, fresh water was fresh water, blessed by Episcopalians or not. Or Catholics. Or Baptists. Holy water was amazingly non-denominational, especially when it was giving him hives from skin contact.   
  
He hadn't been lying about *that* to Anne. This provided a side track of idle thought into how on earth his mother could have given Vergil and himself proper Catholic christenings without the head diaper rash to end them all, but unfortunately his mother being twenty years dead put an end into that line of inquiry. So did his father's being similarly unavailable for asking if it set *him* on fire or boiling or what have you as it tended to for full-blooded demons. Then again the Dark Knight Sparda had been an...unusual case. Dante filed that as yet another thing he really wished to God he could have asked his father about and never got the Manual On Being Demonic on. This gave him more to grouse on as he purified a ritual althame for the next stage and finished weaving in the finishing touches to the network of glyphs.  
  
"Booyah. Let's cook this turkey," he muttered to himself, and began. 


	15. Intermission and an Apology

[We open up on a blank white screen. This is due to the author feeling like too much of a lazy bastard to really describe anything.]  
  
[A short thirty-year-old woman with brown hair that occasionally tries to take over her head like a good little hostile lifeform walks on and tries to face the screen. She then gets distracted by muttering as shortly thereafter Trish, Dante, and Anne wander on. Dante happens to be wearing the new outfit Devil May Cry 2 put him in, and seems to be quite vain about it given the way he's strutting even more than usual. Trish and Anne seem less than impressed.]  
  
Dante asks, "Soo, what do you think?"  
  
Anne looks at it critically. "Hmm. Okay, Dante?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Remember when I said the old version made you look like Michael Jackson's version of a pimp?"  
  
Dante bristles. Behind him, Trish gets the very special look of someone fighting down a monster guffaw. "...Yeah?"  
  
Anne looked at him evenly. "This makes you look like a Goth gigolo."  
  
Dante's eyes widen and his mouth works a few times. "HEY!"  
  
Anne continues unruffledly, "I mean, the whole bare chest thing, geesh. Yes, you're attractive, but there's only soo much of your wishbone one can take seeing so often. Doing something moonlighting you didn't tell us about?"  
  
Trish suddenly belts out "IIIIII----AIN'T GOT NO BOOOOOODAAAY!" Then falls down laughing, only to promptly bolt up and well, bolt as Dante irately charges her. The two dash offscreen, Dante yelling profanity as he goes. Anne just watches this all with a vague traffic-wreck interest.  
  
The fourth person, being the woman with the curly hedgerow hair, watches all this boggledly. "God, they're gaining dementia as well as life."  
  
Anne watches. "Don't ask me, o great and mighty creator. You were saying something?"  
  
Glower. "Um, okay, bugger off. Er, that wasn't it..."  
  
Dante runs back through, chasing Trish with Alastor and trailing interesting electricity and a reek of ozone behind. They disappear again.  
  
"Er, okay, um..... All right, to the fine people of Fanfiction.net, even the ones that excluded the NC-17 ratings...."  
  
"Hentai."  
  
"I ONLY READ THEM FOR ACADEMIC INTEREST! Plus, dammit, I have library training, you know, First Amendment, blah blah blah..."  
  
"I'm Welsh. Bugger the first amendment and get out the blowtorches, we go for direct."  
  
"Shut up. ANYWAY! Okay, Fanfiction.net people. Anyway anybody that's read _Rake at the Gates of Annwn_ and have wondered where the hell I've gone off to. Contrary to popular opinion, I haven't been taken out, shot, or mauled. I have, however, been incarcerated in retail. And stuff."  
  
"Who assumed you were mauled?"  
  
Dante and Trish run back through again, this time Dante being chased by Trish, who's screaming obscenities in demontongue and waving the Sparda. She's also apparently had a good portion of her long hair fried off. Dante runs like hell, but gets bits of his coat chopped off in the process.  
  
"SHUT UP, Anne, you're distracting me. All right. I've lapsed. I admit it. Having been a reader myself, I know it sucks when you don't get your fix. And heck, I'm glad you people like _Rake_. I really feel bad I haven't kept up to speed. I just haven't been on my game recently. The problems being that being a retail slave, worrying myself sick over my finances and anger at my lack of life, Fanfiction.net's projectile vomiting in June, and dealing with a sudden death in my close family in early July kind of put the creativity through the blender and turned it into one hundred percent pure barf. Will do my dangdest to get back on track, honest. I know where I'm going with stuff, it just takes some time to get it together."  
  
Trish runs back through again, being chased by Dante. For some reason both are now respectively dressed as Kaori and Ryo Saeba from City Hunter, though Trish still has Kaori's mallet and the Sparda and is trying for enough turn around time to smack Dante without getting throttled by him first. He's red-eyed and screaming something incoherent about his new coat.  
  
General Chaos gives this scene her full, fascinated attention. "I must be tired."  
  
"I *don't* ask how your thought processes work, o mighty and inscrutable author."  
  
"Thanks *so* much for the sarcasm."  
  
"I *don't* mean sarcasm, damn it. Once you get stoked on Coke it's a land man or woman should not comprehend. Your brain, that is."  
  
"Oh, shut up.   
  
The General looks at her notes some more. "Er, anyway. That was just an explanation of what's been going on. Lemme know I'm still loved and all, it might help. Also liberal donations to Paypal--OW!" She turns to glare at Anne, who's looking very innocent. "What's wrong with a little mooching?"  
  
Anne singsongs, "I thought you weren't going to shamelessly prostitute yourself for money on something copyrighted..."  
  
"Oh, YEAH, well, YOU try living with fifty thous in loans and crappy wages, bint."  
  
Trish comes dashing through again, yiping as her behind is now on fire from what seems to be Ifrit, which is merrily blazing on Dante's hands as he froths close behind her, back in his old outfit. Apparently now frustrated beyond all endurance, he slams the ground in an Inferno move, which has the effect of unfortunately incinerating not only Trish, but Anne, his author, and himself in a blast of flame.   
  
Dante stands there wobbling and nicely Cajun-blackened, and then giggles loopily to himself. "Ooops."  
  
Anne stares out from a face now mostly carbonized, and then slowly, calmly turnes around and smacks him in the face before kicking him in the uh....knee. Dante folds, whimpering. Trish elects to lie there and smoke.  
  
One other blackened figure stands up again and coughs several times. "Okay. Maybe that took care of the haircut bills for a few more months. Uh.....CUT!" 


End file.
